


Aphelion

by inked_excerpts



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/F, Gay, and Bella has a personality, but Edward is Elizabeth, literally the original twilight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:46:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25427128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inked_excerpts/pseuds/inked_excerpts
Summary: Aphelion (n): The point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is furthest from the sun.Based heavily on the original Twilight, but Edward Cullen is Elizabeth Cullen. Will Bella give up the things she loves the most - the sun, her friends, and her dreams - to be with Elizabeth?A love story between two star-crossed girls.
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale, Edward Cullen/Bella Swan, Emmett Cullen/Rosalie Hale, Mike Newton/Jessica Stanley, but gay - Relationship, in which Edward is a girl
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	1. Preface

I hadn’t thought much about how I would die, even though no one would have blamed me, given the events of the last few months. But even if I had, it wouldn’t have been like this.

I stared without breathing across the dimly lit room into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me. I suppose it wasn’t the worst way to die, taking the place of someone I held close to my heart. Maybe you could even have called it noble. That ought to count for something on the way up. Or down. In any case, I was about to find out. I knew that if I’d never gone to Forks, I wouldn’t be looking death in his mild-mannered face right now. But even though I could feel my hands vibrate from fear, I couldn’t bring myself to regret the decision. Life offered me a dream beyond anything my imagination could have conjured up, and I knew that eventually I had to wake up. 

The hunter smiled gently and sauntered forward to kill me. 


	2. First Sight

I stuck my hand out the window of the car as my mother drove me to the airport and winced as the highway wind whipped over my skin, fast enough to sting. I wanted to feel the Phoenix sun on my skin one last time and wanted to reach my hand towards the perfect, cloudless sky before it was gone. The white chiffon sleeves on my favorite blouse billowed, wing-like, and I was already mourning the lightness of the cloth. I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka with a tiny umbrella tucked into the left pocket. 

Forks happens to be located in the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, and accordingly it exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. I think it would win a record for most amount of rain, if it wasn’t so tiny and inconsequential as to be completely ignored by the rest of the country. My mother escaped from the omnipresent shade with me when I was only a few months old, but I was compelled like a heroine in a tragic Greek myth to return for a month every summer until I was fourteen. By then my temper had grown fangs, and my dad Charlie agreed to vacation with me in California for two weeks instead, to appease me. 

But my Greek tragedy had a curse, which was that I had to return to Forks even though I detested it. I loved Phoenix so much my heart ached at the thought of leaving the blistering heat and the energy of the city. As a kid, my mom liked to joke that I was a lizard because I would sit in the yard and let the sunshine soak over me until the bridge of my nose was dusted red from sunburn. 

“Bella,” my mom said to me -- the last of a thousand times -- before I got on the plane. “You don’t  _ have _ to do this.” I stared into her eyes, wide and childlike despite her age, and felt a spasm of panic. How could I leave my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself? She had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the fridge, gas in the car, and someone to text when she got lost, but it wasn’t the same. 

“I want to go,” I replied, and smiled to hide my life. I had never been a good liar, but this one rolled over my tongue so frequently these days it slid through my teeth almost smoothly now. 

“Tell Charlie I said hi.”

“I will.”

“I’ll see you soon,” she insisted. “You can come home whenever you want -- I’ll come right back here as soon as you need me.” 

But I could see the sacrifice peeking out from behind her eyes behind the promise. 

“Don’t worry about me,” I urged. “It’ll be great. I love you, Mom.” She wrapped her arms around me in a hug so tight my breath caught in my chest, and then I got on the plane, and she was gone.

The flight from Phoenix to Seattle is four hours, and then I’d have to get on a small plane up to Port Angeles, which would take another hour, and then I’d have to sit through an hour long drive back down to Forks. With Charlie. He had really been fairly nice about the whole thing, and seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him for the first time with any degree of permanence. He’d already registered me for high school, and was going to help me buy a car. But neither of us were anything close to chatty, and even if I was, I wouldn’t know what to say. I knew he was confused by my apparent change of heart at going to Forks, and I didn’t want to discuss it with him. 

It was raining as expected by the time I landed in Port Angeles, but I had already kissed the sunshine goodbye. Charlie was waiting for me in his cruiser, which I also expected. Charlie is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. My primary motivation for buying a car despite the scarcity of my funds was that I refused to be driven around in a car with red and blue lights on top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop. 

He slung his arm around me in an awkward, one-armed hug when I stumbled off the plane with my luggage, and I felt myself missing my mother already. 

“It’s good to see you, Bells,” he said, smiling as he hoisted my bag over his shoulder. “You haven’t changed much. How’s Renee?”

“Mom’s fine. It’s good to see you too, Dad.” I was smart enough not to call him Charlie to his face. 

Most of my clothes from Arizona were too permeable for Washington, so I only had a few bags. My mom and I had pooled our resources to supplement my winter wardrobe, but it wasn’t much, and it all fit easily into the trunk of the cruiser. 

“I found a good car for you, really cheap,” Charlie announced when we had both strapped ourselves in.

“What kind of car?” I replied after a moment, suspicious of the way he said “good car for you” instead of just “good car”. 

“Well, truck actually. It’s a Chevy.”

“Where did you find it?”

“Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?” La Push is the tiny Native American reservation on the coast. 

“No.”

“He used to go fishing with us during the summer,” Charlie prompted, which didn’t spark any memories of Billy but did tell me why I might have forgotten him. I do a good job of taking all the boring, painful moments in my life and shoving them in the back filing cabinets of my mind. 

“He’s in a wheelchair now,” Charlie continued when I didn’t respond, “so he can’t drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck at a discount.”

“What year is it?” I could tell from the way his mouth twitched that this was a question he was hoping to avoid. 

“Well, Billy’s done a lot of work on the engine -- it’s only a few years old. Really.”

I hoped he didn’t think so little of me as to believe I would give up that easily. “Yes, but what year is it?” I repeated. 

“He bought it in 1994, I think.”

“New?”

“Well, no. It hasn’t been new for a few decades,” Charlie admitted sheepishly. 

“Ch-Dad, I don’t really know anything about cars. I wouldn’t be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I don’t think I can afford a mechanic.”

“Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don’t build them like that anymore.”

_ The thing _ , I thought to myself. At least it had possibilities as a nickname. 

“How cheap is  _ cheap _ ?” I asked, after shuffling through my options in my head. After all, that was the only thing I couldn’t compromise on. 

“Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift.” Charlie pressed his lips together in a tight smile as he glanced sideways at me with a hopeful expression. How unexpected. 

“You didn’t need to do that, Dad. I was planning on buying my own car.” 

“I don’t mind. I want you to be happy here.” He was staring ahead at the road, his back perfectly rigid, as he said this. A rush of heat at the base of my neck compelled me to look away from him as I responded. Clearly, neither of us were comfortable expressing emotions with each other. I supposed I did share some blood with Charlie after all. 

“That’s really nice, Dad. Thanks. I appreciate it.” I chose my words carefully, trying not to show that my being happy in Forks felt like an impossibility. There was no point in making him suffer with me. And I wasn’t one to turn down a gift, especially such a heartfelt one. 

“Well, now, you’re welcome,” he mumbled. We exchanged a few comments on the weather, which was wet, and then the conversation trickled to an end. I leaned my forehead against the side window and watched the world zoom by with unfocused eyes. Everything was lush and fertile and green. Moss wrapped around trees like velvet gloves and hung off the branches in canopy curtains. Ferns carpeted the ground so densely I couldn’t see the dirt. Even the air felt different. It was beautiful but foreign, and I felt like I had been pulled into a nature documentary. 

Eventually we made it to Charlie’s. He still lived in the small, two-bedroom house that he’d bought in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only days they had together - the early ones. Parked on the street in front of the house frozen in time was my  _ hasn’t been new for a few decades  _ truck. It was a faded red, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense surprise, I found myself loving it. I didn’t know if it would run, but I could already picture myself sitting in the driver’s seat. Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged - the kind that you see in car accidents on TV, the paint unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car that it had destroyed. 

“Wow, Dad, thanks! I love it.” My nerves for my first day tomorrow felt a touch calmer, knowing that I wouldn’t have to choose between either walking two hours in a cold drizzle or accepting a ride from the Chief’s cruiser. 

“I’m glad you like it,” Charlie mumbled, probably embarrassed again. It took the two of us one trip to move my bags into the west bedroom that overlooked the front yard. It had been mine since I was born. The Tiffany blue walls, the peaked ceiling, and the ivory lace curtains served as backdrop to more than a few childhood memories. The only real changes Charlie had made were switching out my crib for a bed and adding a writing desk which now held a desktop computer. There was no mouse pad underneath the mouse, which I made a mental note to buy. The rocking chair from my baby days still sat in the corner, coated in a thin layer of ash white dust. 

My favorite thing about Charlie is that he doesn’t hover. He left me to my own devices to unpack and get settled, something my mother could never figure out. The tears started leaking as soon as I heard Charlie’s footsteps disappear down the hallway. I wasn’t in a mood to go on a real crying jag, which I figured I would save until bed in case I needed to talk to Charlie again. 

Forks High School had a total of three hundred and fifty seven - now fifty-eight- students. There were more than seven hundred in my class of juniors alone back home. The kids here had grown up together. Hell, their  _ grandparents _ had probably grown up together. I would be the new girl, with no idea what they found trendy or interesting. And I didn’t exactly represent the valley of the sun very well, given how easily I burned despite my propensity for sitting out in the sunshine. I could never work up a healthy tan, so that was strike one against being popular. I wasn’t much of an athlete either, because I never found the emotional investment to try in the various sports my mom signed me up for as a kid. Strike two. And I preferred to do things on my own and think about things without telling other people what was on my mind constantly. Strike three. 

When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser, I pulled out my bag of toiletries to clean myself up after a few hours of sitting in airplane air. My hair was already starting to frizz very slightly, no doubt from the humidity. I had hopes that the moisture would be good for my complexion, but I only looked sallow and tired. I sighed, resigned to the knowledge that no amount of cosmetic magic could hide my dejection at being in Forks. I wasn’t a good actress, and people don’t like being around unhappy people. It took a lot of energy to be pleasant. I retreated to bed right as the torrent of tears started. Thankfully, the sound of the rain pounding against the room hid my pathetic sniffles as my body released the stress of the day. I pulled my blanket over my head to drown out the sound of the rain, but eventually it died into a faint drizzle that lulled me to sleep. 

I couldn’t see a thing out of my window in the morning. Fog had settled over everything, and I felt a wave of anxiety at not being able to see the sky. Breakfast with Charlie was a quiet event. He wished me good luck at school, and then left for the police station that was his actual wife and family. After the door closed, I examined the kitchen with its dark paneled walls, neon yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor. The house was truly unchanged. The cabinets, garishly bright, were a naive attempt by my mother to bring some sunshine into the house. There were a few photographs over the fireplace. A wedding photo of my parents in Las Vegas. Some photos of me in various ages of childhood. As I looked closer, I had the faint sensation that Charlie had never gotten over my mother. The realization made me uncomfortable, so I slid into my jacket and headed out into the fog. 

The truck had been cleaned up, though the tan upholstered seats still smelled faintly of tobacco, gasoline, and curiously, of peppermint. The engine started quickly, though it roared at top volume. I chalked it up to the age and opted to focus on the functional antique radio, a bonus I hadn’t expected. Leaving early had been a good choice, as I had to drive slower than usual with the poor visibility and rain. I nearly missed the sign for Forks High School, which was just a collection of matching brick houses. Where were the chain-link fences, the metal detectors?

I shuffled into the building, which was blissfully warm, and beelined for the office. The plump red-haired woman sitting behind the counter looked up as I approached. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Isabella Swan,” I said, and bared my teeth in what I hoped was a smile. Her eyes lit up with an immediate awareness. I was expected, although I had no idea if that was good. Daughter of the Chief. Hopefully I wasn’t labeled a snitch already. 

“Of course”, she said. She dug through a precariously stacked pile of documents on her desk. She showed me my class schedule, highlighted the best routes on the map, and gave me a slip to have each teacher sign. I was supposed to bring it back at the end of the day. She smiled at me and hoped, like Charlie, that I would like it here in Forks. I forced another smile. 

I noted with relief on the way out that neither my car nor my jacket marked me as an outcast immediately. At my old school, it wasn’t uncommon to see a new Mercedes or Porsche in the student parking lot. I followed the map to my first classroom, and took the slip to the teacher, a tall balding man whose desk had a nameplate identifying him as Mr. Mason. He gawked ever so slightly when he saw my name, and I smiled yet again. My cheek muscles were getting a workout. Mercifully, he sent me to the back, though it didn’t seem to stop my new classmates from stealing glances back at me. I pretended to focus on the reading list I had been given to avoid making eye contact. It was fairly basic: Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I’d read most of it, which was comforting, if slightly boring. I wondered if my mom would send me my folder of old essays, or if she would think that was cheating. I ran through different arguments with her in my head while the teacher droned on. 

The rest of the morning passed in about the same fashion. My trigonometry teacher, Mr. Varner, who I would have hated anyways just because of the subject he taught, was the only one who made me stand in front of the class and introduce myself. After two classes, I started to recognize several of the faces in each class. There was always one brave soul who asked me questions about how I was liking Forks. I tried to be diplomatic, but my cheeks were getting tired from constantly smiling. One girl sat next to me in both trig and Spanish, and she walked with me to the cafeteria for lunch. She was tiny, several inches shorter than me, and I was already slightly below average in height, but her wildly curly dark hair made up for most of it. I couldn’t remember her name, so I just nodded and listened as she prattled on about teachers and classes. We sat at the end of a full table with several of her friends, who she introduced to me. They seemed impressed with her bravery in speaking to me. Initially, I tried to keep up with their conversation, but it soon became apparent that I was missing the backstory to much of their topics, so I opted to lean back and people-watch. It was there, scanning the cafeteria idly, that I first saw them.

They were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away as possible from where I sat in the long room. There were five of them. It didn’t look like they were conversing, but none of them even touched the food on the trays in front of them. But it wasn’t either of these things that held my attention. They didn’t look anything alike. Of the two boys, one was big -- built like the star quarterback at my old school, with dark curly hair. The other was blond and lean with shoulders half the width of the first boy. Both looked like they were adult actors masquerading as teenagers in a B-list rom-com. 

I could only see two of the three girls from where I was sitting. One had incredibly long blonde hair which was far too glossy to be anything but extensions, but it somehow looked real on her. The second girl was waiflike - even from a distance I could see how thin she was - with deep black hair cropped in a pixie cut. I craned my neck to see the third, but the larger boy was blocking her. I bit down on my baby carrot in annoyance and tried, uselessly, to shift my attention back to the conversation at the table. My eyes drifted back to their table. Despite their differences, the four of them that I could see looked exactly alike. They were all pale, the type of pale that my mother would have sent outside to bake under the sun for a few hours. Then the larger boy leaned back in his chair, and the fifth girl was suddenly visible. I felt myself jab myself in the chin with my carrot. She had sleek bronze hair and the sort of face that you would expect to see on a runway. An unconventional, inhuman allure. 

But there was something off about all of their faces too. Despite the range of hair tones, they all had very dark eyes, which seemed to suggest that their hair was dyed. They also had dark, purplish bruising laced beneath their eyes. Not unlike the bruises that my classmates tried unsuccessfully to hide with concealer after their nose jobs. Nose jobs didn’t look that good though, not if they were fresh enough for bruising to be visible. And all of their features were straight and frighteningly symmetrical. As I watched, the dark haired girl rose with her tray - with an unopened coke and a perfectly smooth apple - and floated towards the trash can. She dumped the entire tray before disappearing through the back door. 

“Who are they?” I asked the girl from my Spanish class, whose name I had forgotten. 

As she followed my gaze to see where I was looking - though already knowing, probably, from my tone - the entire table shifted their attention towards me. I dropped my gaze, flushed, and cursed under my breath at the timing. It was like they had all heard my question, even though they were practically across the cafeteria. 

“Um, the big one is Emmett. The girl next to him is Elizabeth, and then Jasper and Rosalie. The one who left was Alice.” My neighbor said this with hushed voices. I finally remembered her name as Jessica. 

I glanced back up at the table. All of them had turned back to their conversation, except for Elizabeth, who was still looking my way. I felt the nape of my neck flush from embarrassment, and then she turned away with a disinterested expression on her face. 

“They are… very attractive.” I said, and pressed my lips together at the conspicuous understatement. 

“Yes!” Jessica agreed with a giggle, then leaned in. I knew from experience that this signaled an impending secret, or perhaps just a juicy piece of gossip. “They’re all together though - Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they  _ live together _ .” Her voice held all the shock and condemnation of a small town. Not that I blamed her. It would cause raised eyebrows even in Phoenix. 

“Are they all related?” I asked, unsure what she was implying.

“Oh, they’re not. Jasper and Rosalie Hale are twins. Their aunt adopted Emmett, Elizabeth, and Alice.” Jessica said. 

“Oh, that’s very sweet of their parents,” I replied. 

“I guess so,” Jessica said, but something about her tone made me feel that she didn’t like the siblings very much. “I’m pretty sure Mrs. Cullen can’t have kids though,” she added, as if that lessened their kindness. 

“And what about Elizabeth? Is she single?” I asked, still staring at her. I couldn’t imagine her unattached. 

“She doesn’t date. Apparently none of the boys here are good looking enough.” Jessica sniffed. I wondered which crush of hers had been Elizabeth’s admirer, and bit my lip to hide my smile. I glanced at the table again, and Elizabeth was smiling too, even though she was turned away from me now. After a few moments, the four of them left the table together. They moved in sync, like the dancers in the competitive dance shows my mother liked to watch. It was unsettling. I sat at the table for longer than I would have liked, watching Elizabeth’s ridiculously long legs glide through the cafeteria doors. Then Jessica declared that she was off to class, and our table scattered. One of my new acquaintances, Angela, was kind enough to walk with me to the biology class we shared. 

Her kindness only went so far, unfortunately. When we entered the classroom, she beelined for another girl already sitting at a black-toppped lab table. In fact, all of the tables were filled except for one. Next to the center aisle, I recognized Elizabeth - how could I forget? - sitting next to that single open seat. I walked down the aisle to introduce myself to the teacher and get my slip signed, watching her surreptitiously the entire time. Just as I passed, she suddenly coughed, and I turned to look directly at her. She was staring at me with an expression I wouldn’t have expected from a stranger. Her beautiful features were contorted in rage. I looked away, my stomach falling to my feet. 

Her eyes were coal black. 

Mr. Banner signed my slip and sent me back to the one open seat. I wasn’t sure what I had done to draw Elizabeth’s ire. She leaned away from me as I approached the table, practically perched on the edge of her lab stool. Her hand was over her nose. Inconspicuously, I sniffed the ends of my hair, which smelled like the coconut shampoo I always used. It wasn’t particularly strong, and seemed an innocent enough odor. I tried my best to pay attention to the lecture on cellular biology, though my eyes kept wandering to the girl next to me. She never relaxed her position on the edge of her stool, which couldn’t have been comfortable to hold. Her hands were clenched into fists so tight I could see the outline of her tendons. 

I waited the entire class for those fists to loosen. They never did. She sat completely still, so still it looked like she wasn’t breathing. Was this normal? I started to question my judgment at Jessica’s attitude at lunch. Perhaps there was a reason behind it after all. I snuck one last peek as I packed my belongings for the next class, and regretted it. She was glaring down at me, like  _ actually _ down at me, because she was incredibly tall, and her black eyes were full of revulsion. I shoved my books into my bag and willed the bell to ring. The phrase  _ if looks could kill _ rang through my mind. 

The bell rang after an arduously long moment, and then Elizabeth Cullen was out the door before anyone else had even stood up from their seats. I stared blankly after her. At least she wasn’t incredibly popular, based on Jessica’s reaction at lunch. Hopefully my social opportunities weren’t already devastated. But the reaction was so uncalled for, so mean, that a wave of anxiety crawled over me. 

I dragged myself to gym class, which was the last place I wanted to be after whatever had transpired in biology. At home, only 2 years of PE were required. Forks required all 4 years. The gods couldn’t have come up with a better way to torture me. I watched four volleyball games running simultaneously, did my best volleyball serves, and tried my best to dissociate from reality. I wanted to go home and wrap myself in a warm blanket. I wanted to reread the comic books that I had packed and pretend that I was somewhere else, anywhere else. All I needed to do was to hand my forms in. 

But when the last bell rang and I got to the office to hand in my signed slips, I nearly turned around and walked back out. 

Elizabeth stood at the desk in front of me. I recognized her from the straight bronze hair and legs that seemed to extend forever. She didn’t seem to notice my presence, so I stood with my back pressed to the back wall, waiting for the receptionist to be free. Elizabeth was arguing with her in a low voice that reminded me of the actresses in vintage movies. I quickly picked up the gist of their argument. She was trying to trade from sixth period biology to another time - any other time. The baby carrots I had for lunch threatened to come up. I had been trying to convince myself that Elizabeth’s reaction wasn’t about me, because I couldn’t believe that a stranger could take such an intense dislike to me. 

The office door opened again, and a gust of cold wind blew through the room. Elizabeth whipped her head around to glare at me - her face still absurdly beautiful - with piercing eyes. I felt a thrill of genuine fear that chilled me more than the autumn wind. She turned towards the receptionist. 

“Never mind then,” she said hastily in a velvet voice. “I can see it’s impossible. Thank you for your help.” Then she strode past me and disappeared into the parking lot. 

“How did your first day go, dear?” The receptionist asked maternally.

“Fine,” I lied, my voice weak. I didn’t have the energy to be convincing. By the time I collapsed into the driver's seat of my truck, it was almost the last car in the lot. It seemed like a haven, the closest thing I had to home in this damp, verdant hellscape. I sat inside for a while, staring out of the windshield blankly. But soon I was cold enough to need the heater, so I turned the key and let the engine roar to life. I headed back to Charlie’s house, biting back tears the entire way there. 


	3. Unreadable

The next day was somehow better _and_ worse. 

It was better because I knew what to expect, and the shiny luster of the “new girl” title was starting to fade. People didn’t stare at me quite as much. I sat with a large crowd at lunch consisting mostly of Jessica’s friends, and I was starting to remember their names. I got along particularly well with a boy named Mike, even though he acted with a strange brand of small town friendliness. It felt like I was treading water now, instead of drowning in it. 

Not that I escaped without embarrassing myself. Mr. Varner called on me in trigonometry even though my hand wasn’t raised, and to make things worse, I had the wrong answer. I was still terrible at volleyball, though the girl I bonked in the head with the ball in gym class probably suffered more than I did. But perhaps it was worse because Elizabeth Cullen wasn’t in school at all. All morning, a slow, looming dread had built in my stomach about lunch and how I was supposed to react when I next saw her. However, all my planning turned out to be pointless. When I walked into the cafeteria with Jessica -- trying to keep my eyes from sweeping for her, and failing entirely -- I saw that her four siblings were sitting together at the same table, and she was not with them. I sat down at my table and tried my best to listen to the conversation, but I was waiting. Waiting, with a nauseating anxiety, for the moment Elizabeth arrived. I hoped she would simply ignore me when she came, and prove my suspicions false. 

She never showed up. I walked to biology with a bizarre sense of relief and disappointment, and held my breath at the door. She wasn’t at her seat. I exhaled, perhaps too dramatically for something so inconsequential, and set my books down at my table. I was relieved that I had the whole table to myself, that Elizabeth was absent. At least, that’s what I told myself repeatedly. But I couldn’t get rid of the nagging suspicion that I was the reason she wasn’t here. It was ridiculous, and egoistical, to think that I could affect someone so strongly. The thought clung to me for the rest of the day, through gym class, all the way to the parking lot until I climbed into my truck. Charlie had asked me to go grocery shopping on the way home, so I punched the address into my phone and reviewed the directions. 

As I pulled into the line of cars waiting to exit the lot, I saw the two Cullens and two Hales getting into their car. I was too far to see their faces properly, so I settled for inspecting their clothes as I waited. Without the distracting pull of their faces, it was obvious that they were all dressed exceptionally well. Their clothing hinted at designer origins, or at the very least had made a trip to the tailors. With their looks, they could probably pull off dishrags. It seemed excessive for them to have both looks and money. But as far as I could tell, life worked that way most of the time. It didn’t look as if it bought them any acceptance here. 

No, I didn’t fully believe that. The isolation must be their desire; I couldn’t imagine any door that wouldn’t be opened by that degree of beauty. 

Grocery shopping was delightfully normal. I had an odd love for wandering long supermarket aisles and brainstorming recipes. When I got home, I unloaded the groceries in the fridge, shoving items wherever they would fit. I settled for stuffing some potatoes in the oven to bake, and marinating a steak, which seemed like a benign enough dinner to please Charlie. When I finished that, I lugged my backpack upstairs and collapsed into bed to check my phone. I had three messages. 

_Bella_ … The first one was from my mother. _I hope you’re settled in. I miss you. Do you know where my pink blouse is? Phil says hi. Love you._

I sighed and scrolled down. 

_Bella, why haven’t you responded? What are you waiting for?_

That was from last night, when I was already asleep. The last text was from this morning. 

_If I haven’t heard from you by 5:30pm today I’m calling Charlie._

I checked the clock. I still had an hour, but I wasn’t going to risk an awkward conversation between Charlie and my mother.

 _Sorry mom,_ I typed. _I don’t have many updates. I’ve met some nice people at lunch. Your blouse is at the dry cleaners, you were supposed to pick it up on Friday. Charlie bought me a truck, which is very sweet of him. I will text when I have more stuff. Love you._ Just to be safe, I added a heart emoji at the end of the message to placate her. 

I decided to read Wuthering Heights, again, for English class, mostly because I didn’t want to work on my math homework. It wasn’t until I heard the front door open that I realized I’d lost track of time, and I hurried downstairs to take the potatoes out and put the steak in to broil. 

“Bella?” Charlie called out when he heard me on the stairs. _Who else_? I thought. 

“Hey dad, welcome home.”

“Thanks. What’s for dinner?” He asked, somewhat warily. My mother was an imaginative chef. I was surprised, and sad, that he seemed to remember that far back. 

“Steak and potatoes,” I replied, and he looked relieved. 

“Do you need help with anything?” 

I shook my head and suggested that he relax in the living room while I finished dinner. I made a salad while the steaks cooked, and then I set the table. I called him in when dinner was ready, and he sniffed appreciatively as he walked into the room. 

“Smells good, Bella.”

“Thanks.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes, though it wasn’t awkward. Neither of us were particularly bothered by the quiet. Maybe the living situation would work better than I expected. 

“So, how did you like school? Have you made any friends?” He asked, as he took seconds. 

“I have a few classes with a girl named Jessica. I sit with her at lunch. She has a friend named Mike,” I replied, digging names out of my brain. “He’s very friendly.”

“Must be Mike Newton. He’s a nice kid - nice family. His dad owns the sporting goods store in town.”

“Do you know the Cullens?” I asked hesitantly. 

“Dr. Cullen’s family? Sure. Dr. Cullen’s a great man.”

“The kids seem a little… different. They don’t seem to fit in very well at school.”

Charlie’s eyebrows scrunched together in an expression of anger, which surprised me. I had tried to word my thoughts about the Cullens politely. 

“People in this town,” Charlie muttered. “Dr. Cullen is a brilliant surgeon who could probably work in any hospital in the world and make ten times his current salary,” he said, getting louder. “We’re lucky that his family decided to settle here. He’s an asset to the community, and all of those kids are extraordinarily well behaved. I haven’t had a speck of trouble with them. That’s more than I can say for the children of some folks who’ve been in this town for generations. Just because they’re newcomers… People have to talk.”

It was the longest speech I’d ever heard Charlie make. I choked down the bite of potato I was chewing, and backpedaled. 

“Oh, they seem nice enough to me. I just noticed they keep to themselves. They’re all very attractive,” I added, trying to be complementary even as I swatted thoughts of Elizabeth’s face out of my mind. 

“You should see the doctor,” Charlie laughed. “It’s a good thing he’s happily married. A lot of the nurses have trouble concentrating on their work when he’s around.”

I smiled in response, though I didn’t think Dr. Cullen’s attractiveness mattered. As far as Jessica had told me, the kids were adopted - there was no genetic relationship. Which made their supernatural beauty all the more peculiar. Was it just a case of beautiful people adopting beautiful children?

The rest of the week passed without incident. By Friday, I could recognize everyone at school. People started blocking balls for me in gym class, and I gratefully stayed out of their way. Mike and Jessica invited me to a trip at La Push Ocean Park, and I agreed, more out of politeness than real desire to go. I waltzed into my last biology class of the week, perfectly comfortable now that Elizabeth Cullen hadn’t shown up in an entire week. For all I knew, she’d dropped out of school. I still believed, however irrationally, that I had something to do with her disappearance, but I tried not to think about it. I felt comfortable here, more than I had expected when I moved. 

On Monday morning, the air was full of glittering bits of white. The wind bit at my cheeks and whistled across my nose. Jessica yanked me outside during lunch, where people were already beginning to lob flying chunks of snow at each other. 

“Have you ever seen snow?” She yelled, over the noise of the other students. 

“Only on TV!” I responded, ducking as Mike threw a snowball that caught Jessica squarely in the face, just barely missing me. She shrieked, and bent down to scoop some snow with her bare hands. 

“I’ll, uh, be inside!” I said, scurrying back into the school building with my backpack as a shield over my head. I did _not_ have the hand-eye coordination to participate in a snowball fight. Once I was safely inside, I found a nearby window to take some photos to send to my mother. Mike and Jessica eventually made their way toward me, snow and water clinging to their hair. I laughed, and snapped a picture of them both. As we stood in the lunch line, I glanced toward the table in the corner, out of habit more than anything, and froze. There were five people at the table. 

“Uh, Earth to Bella. You okay?” Jessica asked. I nodded, and turned my attention back to them, though all the good energy I had built seemed to have vanished, replaced by the familiar vortex of anxiety. I bought half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a can of seltzer water, and nothing else, and brushed it off when Mike asked if that was all I was eating. 

My appetite was gone. I wondered, briefly, if I should play it up and escape to the nurse’s office for the next hour. _Ridiculous_ , I told myself. _You shouldn’t have to run away_. I decided to permit myself one glance at the Cullen’s table, not knowing what I would do if Elizabeth was glaring at me. None of them were looking at me. I sighed, feeling stupid at myself for getting worked up. 

They were laughing. The boys all had their hair saturated with glistening, melting snow, and the girls were leaning away as Emmett shook his dripping hair toward them. They were enjoying the snow, like the rest of us, only it looked beautiful and choreographed when they did it. But aside from the laughter and playfulness, there was something else that was different about them. I examined Elizabeth the most carefully. She was less pale, almost flushed -- from the snow, perhaps -- and seemed to glow, like she was elsewhere entirely, and not trapped beneath the frosted blue fluorescence of the cafeteria lighting like the rest of us. 

“Bella, what are you staring at?” Jessica prodded, her eyes following my stare. 

At that exact moment, Elizabeth’s eyes flashed over to meet mine. I dropped my head and averted my gaze. I was sure, though, in the instant that our eyes met, that she didn’t look nearly as antagonistic as the last time we had met. She looked merely curious, perhaps haughty or unsatisfied in some way. 

“Elizabeth Cullen is staring at you,” Jessica whispered. 

“She doesn’t look angry, does she?” I couldn’t help asking. 

“No,” she said, sounding confused. “Should she be?”

“I don’t think she likes me,” I confided. I leaned my forehead against my arm. 

“The Cullens don’t like anyone. Well, they don’t notice anyone enough to like them. But she’s still staring.”

“Stop _looking_ ,” I hissed. 

Jessica giggled, but she looked away. Mike interrupted us about a snowball fight after school, to which Jessica eagerly agreed. The way she looked at him left little doubt that she would be up for anything he suggested. I decided it would be better to make myself scarce, to give her more time alone with him. I walked to biology class, slowly this time, still apprehensive about seeing Elizabeth. But to my relief, my table was still empty when I arrived. I was a little early, and Mr. Banner was distributing microscopes and a box of slides to each table. I fixated on my notes from last class, waiting. I heard very clearly when the chair next to me moved, but my eyes stayed carefully focused on the diagram of eukaryotic cells I had drawn earlier that week. 

“Hello,” said a quiet, musical voice. 

I looked up, stunned that she was speaking to me. She was sitting as far away from me as the desk allowed, but her chair was angled toward me. Her hair glistened with a light sheen of water -- clearly she hadn’t escaped Emmett’s head shaking -- but even so, she looked like she’d just walked in to shoot a shampoo commercial. Her face was friendly, open, and her cherry tinted lips were pulled into a slight smile. But her eyes were careful.

“I’m Elizabeth Cullen,” she continued. “I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself last week. You must be Bella Swan.” My mind was spinning like a hamster on its wheel. Had I made up the whole thing? She was perfectly polite now. I had to speak; her eyes were fixed on me expectantly. But I couldn’t think of anything interesting to say. 

“How do you-- How do you know my name?” I finally managed. 

She laughed a soft, enchanting laugh. 

“The whole town was waiting for the sheriff’s daughter to arrive.”

I grimaced. I knew it was something like that. 

“No,” I persisted. “I meant, why did you call me Bella?” 

She hesitated. “Do you prefer Isabella?” 

“No, Bella’s fine,” I said. “It’s just that my dad calls me Isabella in public, so that’s what I’m known as. I was just wondering how you knew I preferred Bella.” 

“Oh, I must have remembered from our last class together,” Elizabeth waved her hand dismissively. Her hands were pale, with long, slender fingers. I tore my eyes away before she could catch me staring. 

Thankfully, Mr. Banner started class at that moment. He explained the lab we would be doing today. The slides in the box were out of order. Working as lab partners, we had to separate the slides of onion root tip cells into the phases of mitosis they represented and label them accordingly. No books or notes. He’d check in on us in twenty minutes to see who had it right. 

“Would you like to start?” Elizabeth asked. I looked up to see her smiling a crooked smile with teeth so _blindingly white_ that I very nearly asked her what toothpaste she used. 

“Or I could, if that’s easier.” The smile she faded; she was obviously wondering if I was mentally competent. 

“No,” I said, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks. “I’ll go ahead.” I was showing off, despite having no reason to. I'd already done this lab back in Phoenix, and I knew what I was looking for. I snapped the first slide into place under the microscope and adjusted it quickly. 

“Prophase.” My assessment was confident. 

“Do you mind if I take a look?” Elizabeth asked, as I began to remove the slide. Her hand caught mine, to stop me, as she asked. Her fingers were ice-cold, like she’d just come in from a snowball fight, but we’d been sitting in the classroom for a while now. But that wasn’t why I jerked my hand away so quickly. When she touched me, it stung my hand as if an electric spark had passed through us. 

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, yanking her hand back. However, she continued to reach the microscope, even though she barely glanced at the slide. 

“Prophase,” she agreed. Writing it neatly in the first space on our worksheet. She switched out the first slide for the second, and glanced at it with the same, cursory attitude. 

“Anaphase,” she wrote as she spoke. 

“May I?” 

She smiled and pushed the microscope to me. I looked in the eyepiece and held back a sigh. She was right. 

“Slide three?” I held out my hand without looking at her. She dropped the slide in my palm; it seemed like she was being careful not to touch my skin again. I took the most fleeting look I could manage. 

“Interphase.” I passed her the microscope before she could ask. This time, she wrote the answer without even bothering to look. 

“I trust you,” she said, and I felt a wave of unreasonable giddiness at her words. _Keep it together, Bella_ , I reminded myself. I directed my focus at the worksheet, where Elizabeth had written our answers in beautiful, looping letters. The type of handwriting that I saw only in online blogs showing off their journals. We were finished before anyone else. I waved hello to Mike, who made a brief slicing motion at his neck before his partner elbowed him to focus. There was nothing to do, it seemed, but to avoid Elizabeth’s gaze… 

Unsuccessfully. I glanced up, and she was staring at me, that same expression of subdued curiosity, like a cat watching pedestrians on the street outside. Suddenly, I identified the subtle difference in her face. 

“Did you get contacts?” I blurted out, before the higher regions of my brain could stop me. She looked startled, and shook her head. 

“Oh,” I mumbled. “I thought there was something different about your eyes.”

She shrugged, and looked away. 

In fact, I was sure there was something different. I vividly remembered the flat, black color of her eyes the last time she’d glared at me -- the color was eerie against the background of her pale skin and her auburn hair. Today, her eyes were a completely different color: a strange ocher, darker than butterscotch, but with the same golden tone. I didn’t understand how that was possible, unless she was lying for some reason about the contacts. Perhaps I’d unwittingly stumbled upon a secret behind the beauty. 

I looked down. Her hands were clenched into fists again. But before I could dissect the meaning behind her actions, Mr. Banner swooped by our table to see why we weren’t working. He squinted at the paper for a moment, and frowned. 

“So, Elizabeth, didn’t you think Isabella should get a chance with the microscope?” Mr. Banner asked. 

“Bella,” Elizabeth corrected automatically, her smile beaming up at Mr. Banner. “Actually, we took turns identifying them.”

Mr. Banner turned his attention toward me; his gaze was skeptical. 

“Have you done this lab before?” he asked. 

_Busted_. “Not with onion root,” I admitted sheepishly. 

“Whitefish blastula?”

“Yeah.”

Mr. Banner nodded. “Were you in an advanced placement program in Phoenix?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” he said after a moment. “I guess it’s good you two are lab partners.” He mumbled something else as he walked away. 

“It’s too bad about the snow, isn’t it?” Elizabeth asked. I had the feeling that she was forcing herself to make small talk with me. It was like she had heard my conversation with Jessica at lunch and was trying to prove me wrong. 

“It’s okay,” I replied, still trying to dislodge the stupid feeling of suspicion. 

“You don’t like the cold.” It wasn’t a question. 

“God no,” I said, before I could stop myself again. It was like my cerebral cortex just shut off in the presence of this girl. 

“Forks must be a difficult place for you to live,” she mused. 

“I just miss the sun,” I sighed. 

She looked fascinated by what I said, for a reason I couldn’t imagine. Her face was such a distraction that I tried not to look at it any more than courtesy absolutely demanded. I couldn’t tell if I was jealous of how perfectly symmetrical her features were, or if I was just… attracted. 

“So why did you move, then?”

“It’s a long story.” 

“We have time.” 

I paused for a long moment, and made the mistake of meeting her gaze. 

“My mother got remarried,” I said, as if compelled. There was _definitely_ something about her that was overriding my executive functions. 

“That’s unfortunate,” she said, suddenly sympathetic. “When did that happen?”

“Last September.” I tried to keep my voice impartial, but a hint of sadness managed to escape anyways. 

“And you don’t like him,” Elizabeth surmised, her tone still kind. 

“I like him just fine. But he moves around a lot.” 

“So you were sent here, so your mother could travel with him?” 

My chin raised a fraction. “No, I decided to move so they could spend more time together.” 

Her eyebrows knit together in confusion. I sighed. Why was I explaining this to her?

“It doesn’t seem fair for you to move to a place you dislike,” she said, her eyes fixed on my face. I shrugged with my palms up. 

“Haven’t you heard? Life isn’t fair.” 

“Hmm, I believe I have heard that somewhere before,” she chuckled. “You’re just very hard to read.” 

“You must be a good reader then,” I replied. 

“Usually.” She smiled, flashing those perfect teeth again. I wondered for a moment if they were very expensive, expertly done veneers. There was a certain layer of artifice to her, something uncanny about her beauty, that looked like it had been constructed by someone else entirely. 

Mr. Banner called the class to order then, and I turned with relief to listen. I was in disbelief that I’d just explained my life to this bizarre, beautiful girl who may or may not despise me. She’d seemed engrossed in our conversation, but now I could see, from the corner of my eye, that she was leaning away from me again, her hands gripping the edge of the table with unmistakable tension. I tried to appear attentive as Mr. Banner reviewed the slides we went over, but my thoughts were unmanageable. When the bell finally rang, Elizabeth rushed as swiftly and as gracefully from the room as she had last Monday, leaving me staring. Mike and I walked to the gym together -- clearly, I’d been adopted as one of his friends, probably thanks to Jessica -- but I wasn’t listening much to our conversation. 

The rain was only a fine mist as I left the school, but I jogged to my car regardless. In the safety of my car, I fluffed my damp hair out before I started the engine. As I backed out of my parking spot, I looked around me to make sure it was clear, and that’s when I noticed the still, pale figure. Elizabeth Cullen was leaning against the front door of her car, three spots down from me, and staring intently in my direction. She raised her hand at me in a wave as we made eye contact, and a surge of adrenaline coursed through me. I swiftly looked away and threw the truck into reverse, nearly hitting a car in my haste. Luckily, I stomped on the brake in time. I took a deep breath, still looking out the other side of my car, and cautiously pulled out again, with greater success. I stared straight ahead as I passed Elizabeth, but from a peripheral peek, I could swear I saw her laughing.


	4. Phenomenon

There was something different when I peeled my eyes open in the morning. The light, still tinted a grayish green, was somehow clearer. I jumped up to look outside, my soul singing in hopes of sunshine, and then groaned. A fine layer of snow covered the yard and whitened the road. But that wasn’t what was terrible. All the rain from yesterday had frozen solid -- coating the needles on the trees in fantastic, gorgeous patterns, and making the driveway a deadly ice slick. I’d never learned to ice skate, and I couldn’t imagine how I was going to make it to school without endangering myself or someone else. 

Charlie had left for work before I got downstairs. In a lot of ways, living with him was like having my own place, which was pleasant. I made a quick bowl of cereal, telling myself it was so I had more time to get to school despite the ice, even though I knew it was because I was eager to see Elizabeth Cullen. The thought upset me slightly, because I knew I was idolizing her for her appearance. And that was very, very stupid. Still, I wanted to know her secrets. Why did she lie about her eyes? What else was she hiding? 

It took every ounce of my concentration -- and abdominal strength -- to make it down the icy brick driveway alive. I almost lost my balance when I finally got to the truck, but I had managed to grab the side mirror with my flailing arms before I went down completely. Driving was equally demanding, as I had never driven on snowy roads before. My truck seemed to have no problem with the black ice that covered the roads, but I didn’t want to carve a path of destruction through Main Street. 

When I got out of my truck at school, I saw why I’d had so little trouble. A glint of silver caught my eye, and I walked to the back of the truck, still clutching its sides for support, to examine my tires. There were thin chains crisscrossed in diamond shapes around them. Charlie had gotten up who knows how early to put snow chains on my truck. My throat suddenly felt tight. I wasn’t used to having the little details taken care of, and Charlie’s unspoken concern caught me by surprise. I was standing by the back corner of the truck, struggling to fight back the sudden wave of emotion the snow chains had brought on, when I heard an odd sound. 

It was a high-pitched screech, and it was fast becoming painfully loud. I jerked my head up, startled. 

I saw several things simultaneously, though none of it was in slow motion like it was in the movies. Instead, the adrenaline rush seemed to make my brain work much faster, like everything was happening in high definition. 

Elizabeth Cullen was standing four cars down from me, staring in horror. There were other faces too, all frozen in the same mask of shock. But of more immediate importance was the dark blue van that was skidding, tires locked and squealing against the brakes, spinning wildly across the ice of the parking lot. It was going to hit the back corner of my truck, and I was standing between them. I didn’t even have time to close my eyes. 

Just before I heard the shattering crunch of the van folding around the truck bed, something hit me, hard, but not from the direction I was expecting. My head cracked painfully against the icy blacktop, and I felt something solid and cold pinning me to the ground. I was lying on the pavement behind the tan car I’d parked next to. But the van was still coming. It had curled gratingly around the end of the truck, sliding along the frictionless ground. I heard people screaming. It was going to collide with me again. 

A quiet curse made me aware that someone was with me, and the voice was impossible not to recognize. Two thin, white hands shot out protectively in front of me, and the van shuddered to a stop a foot from my face, the well-manicured fingers pressed neatly into a deep dent in the side of the van’s body. 

Then her hands moved so fast they blurred. One was suddenly gripping under the body of the van, and the other was dragging me, swinging my legs around like a rag doll’s, till my foot hit the tire of the tan car. A groaning metallic thud hurt my ears, and the van settled, glass popping, onto the asphalt -- exactly where my legs had been only seconds ago. It was absolutely silent for the longest second of my life, before the screaming began again. In the chaos, I could hear one voice clearly. 

“Bella? Are you alright?” Elizabeth’s voice was low and frantic in my ear. 

“I’m fine,” I gasped. I tried to sit up, and realized she was clutching me against the side of her body in an iron grasp. 

“Stay still,” she commanded. “I think you hit your head pretty hard.” 

I became aware of a throbbing ache centered above my left ear.  _ Ow.  _

“See?” Her voice, amazingly, sounded like she was amused. 

“How in the…” I trailed off, trying to focus. “How did you get over here so fast?”

“I was right next to you, Bella. We were so lucky.” She released her hold around my waist and slid back as far from me as she could in the limited space. I looked at her concerned, innocent expression, and found myself disoriented again by the force of her gold-colored eyes. 

And then they found us, a crowd of people with tears streaming down their faces, shouting at each other, shouting at us. 

“Don’t move,” someone instructed. “Get Tyler out of the van!” 

There was a flurry of activity around us. I tried to get up, but Elizabeth’s hands pushed my shoulder down. 

“Just stay put. You could have hurt your neck in the crash.” She said. I remembered, after a moment, that her father was a doctor. 

“You were over there,” I suddenly remembered, and her expression hardened. “You were by your car.”

“No, I wasn’t.” 

“I  _ saw _ you.” All around us was chaos. I could hear the gruffer voices of adults arriving on the scene. But I stared at her, obstinately. I was right, and she was going to admit it. 

“Bella, I was right next to you, and I barely managed to pull you out of the way.” She unleashed the full, devastating power of her eyes on me, as if trying to communicate something crucial. I shook my head slowly, flinching at the pulsating pain in my head. 

“Trust me,” she pleaded, her voice barely audible over the sirens. “We can talk about it later.”

“Fine,” I relented. 

It took six EMTs and two teachers to shift the van far enough away from us to bring the stretchers in. I tried to refuse an ambulance ride, but Elizabeth insisted with an authority I didn’t know she had that I’d hit my head and probably had a concussion. The EMTs slipped on a neck brace, after which I lost all the goodwill I had towards Forks. Elizabeth slipped into the front seat of the ambulance. To make matters worse, Chief Swan arrived before they could get me safely away. 

“Bella!” he yelled in panic when he recognized me on the stretcher.

“I’m fine, Char-- Dad,” I sighed. “There’s nothing wrong.”

He turned to the closest EMT for a second opinion. I closed my eyes to consider the jumble of inexplicable images churning chaotically in my head. When they’d lifted me away from the car, I had seen the deep dent in the tan car’s bumper - a very distinct dent that could fit the body of a seventeen year old girl… as if she had braced herself against the car with enough force to damage the metal frame. 

And then there was her family, looking on from the distance, with expressions that ranged from disapproval to fury but held not even a hint of concern for their sister’s safety. 

The fight had left me by the time they carted me into the emergency room, and I let the nurse put me through a barrage of tests. I recognized the figure in the other stretcher brought to the bed next to me. Tyler Crowley from my Government class was wrapped in blood stained bandages, looking a hundred times worse than I felt. He looked anxious to see me. 

“Bella, I am  _ so _ sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Are you alright?” As I asked the question, nurses began unwinding his bandages, exposing a myriad of shallow slices all over his forehead and cheek. 

“I thought I was going to kill you. I didn’t slow down in time, and I hit the ice wrong…” He winced as one nurse started dabbing at his face. 

“Don’t worry, you missed me.”

“How did you get out of the way so fast? I didn’t even realize it was you until I crashed.”

“Umm… Elizabeth pulled me out of the way,” I said, even though I knew she would deny it. Tyler looked confused. 

“Wow, she reacted fast. I didn’t see her at all. Is she alright?” 

“I think so. They didn’t put her on a stretcher,” I laughed weakly. I was still fighting off Tyler’s apologies when Elizabeth appeared at the foot of my bed, perfectly poised. 

“Hey Elizabeth, I’m really sorry --” Tyler began. Elizabeth lifted a hand to stop him. 

“No worries,” she said, smiling her perfect smile again. Tyler melted back into bed, placated. Elizabeth sat on the edge of Tyler’s bed, facing me. 

“I heard you’re alright, though you might have a nasty headache.” 

“Isn’t that a HIPAA violation?” I asked, half-serious. 

“It’s all about who you know,” she grinned, as a doctor walked around the corner. I felt my mouth drop open. He was young, he was blond, and he was more handsome than any movie star I’d ever seen. He was pale, though, and tired-looking, with circles under his eyes.  _ Ah, this must be Dr. Cullen _ . 

“So, Miss Swan,” Dr. Cullen said, and I was struck by how similar his voice was to Elizabeth’s, “how are you feeling?”

“I’m alright,” I responded. 

“Your X-rays look good. I’ve written a prescription for some extra-strength Tylenol. Your father can take you to pick it up. But come back if you feel dizzy or have any changes in your eyesight.”

“Can I go back to school?” I asked, dreading the conversation with Charlie. 

“Take it easy today.”

“ _ She _ gets to go to school,” I said, glancing at Elizabeth. “And she was  _ right next to me _ ,” I said, narrowing my eyes. Elizabeth smiled, looking nothing less than angelic. 

“Oh, yes. The two of you were very lucky,” Dr. Cullen agreed, suddenly occupied with the computer screen. Then he turned his attention to Tyler. My intuition flickered; the doctor was in on whatever stunt Elizabeth had pulled. 

Elizabeth accompanied me outside, and I paused in a short, empty hallway. 

“You said we’d talk later,” I reminded her. 

“We were extremely lucky, Bella,” Elizabeth sighed. “There’s nothing else.”

“I want to know the truth. Why am I lying for you? You weren’t next to me.”

“Well then, what do you think happened?” she snapped. 

The words came tumbling out in a rush. 

“You weren’t anywhere near me -- Tyler didn’t see you either. The van was going to crush us both -- and it didn’t, because I saw your hands on it, your fingers fit too neatly in the dent of the car -- and you left a dent in the other car, but you’re not hurt at all-- And you reacted fast enough to pull my legs out of the way--” I could hear how unhinged I sounded. The tears were starting to come; I tried to force them back by grinding my teeth together.

Elizabeth was staring at me incredulously. But her face was tense, defensive. 

“You think  _ I _ lifted a van off you?” She asked, gesturing to her arms. They were toned, but willowy. But the motion only made me more suspicious. It was delivered too smoothly, like she’d rehearsed it before. I nodded, my jaw tight. 

“Nobody will believe that, you know,” Her voice was light, but I sensed an edge of derision. 

“I’m not going to tell anybody,” I said. She was right, though I wasn’t going to admit it. 

Surprise flickered across her face. “Then why does it matter?”

“I don’t like to lie.” 

“Can’t you just thank me and get over it?”

“Thank you, I guess,” I conceded after a moment. 

“That’s not much of a thank you,” Elizabeth pouted, her eyes wide. I inhaled sharply. I was in danger of being distracted by her face again. It was like trying to stare down an elusive, mythical creature. 

“Why did you even bother?” I finally asked. She paused, her features relaxing into an unexpectedly vulnerable expression. 

“I don’t know,” she whispered. And then she turned her back on me and strolled off. I stared after her, realizing only when she disappeared around the corner that she was wearing a pair of impractically heeled boots instead of the chunky snowshoes everyone else wore. 

In the waiting room, I assured Mike and Jessica that I was alright, and that I would text them after school. Charlie led me into his cruiser, and we drove in silence back home. I was too wrapped up in Elizabeth’s strange behavior. 

“Um, you’ll need to call Renee,” Charlie finally broke the silence when we got to the house. 

“You told Mom?!” I exclaimed, appalled. 

“Sorry,” Charlie grimaced. As expected, my mother was in hysterics, and I had to tell her I felt fine at least thirty times before she calmed down. She begged me to come home, which I contemplated, but her pleas were easier to resist than I expected. I was consumed by the mysteries Elizabeth presented. Perhaps a little obsessed with Elizabeth herself.  _ Stupid, stupid, stupid _ . 

I retreated to bed early that night. Charlie hovered, for the first time since I arrived in Forks, and it was getting on my nerves. I stopped on my way to grab three Tylenol from the bathroom. They did help, and as the pain faded, I drifted to sleep. 

That was the first night I dreamed of Elizabeth Cullen. 


	5. Invitations

My dream was dark and somber, though there was a faint light that seemed to be radiating from Elizabeth’s skin. I couldn’t see her face, only her back as she walked away from me like she had in the hospital. No matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t catch up to her; no matter how loudly I called, she never turned. I woke up in the middle of the night, my chest pounding with discomfort. It took me a long time to fall asleep again. 

She made appearances in my dreams nearly every night. Sometimes they were about her, other times she was merely a side character that I caught glimpses of. But she was always there. 

The month that followed the accident was tense and awkward. Tyler Crowley followed me around, apologizing constantly. Everyone asked me how I had managed to survive such a direct collision, and I was forced to put on my best show and explain over and over that Elizabeth was standing next to me and that she’d barely managed to pull me out of the way. I tried to be convincing. Jessica and Mike and everyone else always commented that they hadn’t even seen her there until the van was pulled away. 

I wondered why no one else had seen her standing so far away, before she was suddenly, impossibly saving my life. With chagrin, I realized the probable cause -- no one else was as aware of Elizabeth as I always was. No one else watched her the same way I did. There were no crowds surrounding her, eager for her firsthand account. Instead, they avoided her. The Cullens and the Hales sat at the same table as always, not eating, talking only among themselves. They wore identical expressions that seemed to whisper  _ I’m better than you _ , and the rest of us knew it was true. None of them, especially Elizabeth, glanced my way anymore. When she sat next to me in class, as far from me as the table would allow, she seemed totally unaware of my presence. Only now and then, when her fists would suddenly ball up -- skin stretched even whiter over the bones -- did I wonder if she wasn’t quite as oblivious as she appeared. Perhaps she wished she hadn’t pulled me from the path of Tyler’s van. 

The first day after the accident, I greeted Elizabeth as pleasantly as possible, to show her I was going to cooperate. She turned her head a fraction toward me, without meeting my gaze, nodded once, and then looked the other way. And that was the last acknowledgement I’d had with her, even though she was there, a foot away from me, every day. I learned to stop staring at her so directly, but my attention was always on her. I watched as her golden eyes grew perceptibly darker day by day. Slowly though, I learned to fill my mind with other things - A new web novel series, a Netflix show that Renee texted me about with a  _ delicious _ actor, and a poor, haphazard attempt at a scarf. But the dreams continued. 

Jessica made me aware of another event looming on the horizon -- she called the first Tuesday of March to tell me she was going to invite Mike to the girls’ choice spring dance in two weeks. 

“Who are you going to ask?” She prodded. 

“Sorry Jess, I don’t think I’ll be going,” I said. Dancing, at least the type at school events, was not in my range of interests. 

The next day, however, I was surprised that Jessica wasn’t her usual gushing self in Trig and Spanish. She was silent as she walked by my side between classes, and I was afraid to ask her why. My fears were only strengthened during lunch when she sat as far from Mike as possible, choosing instead to pay attention to the girls. Mike was unusually quiet as we walked to biology, though he didn’t broach the subject until I was in my seat and he was perched on my desk. 

“So,” Mike said, looking at the floor, “Jessica asked me to the spring dance.”

“That’s great,” I made my voice bright and enthusiastic. “You’ll have a lot of fun with Jessica.”

“Well… I told her I had to think about it,” he said. 

“Why would you do that?”

“Man, I just don’t know if I like Jess in that way, you know? What if it’s super awkward? I thought we were just friends.” 

I paused. This was unexpected, from Mike at least. “Why don’t you have a conversation with her about it? Maybe you can go as just friends.” 

“Hmm, maybe I will. Thanks Bella. Did you ask someone yet?”

I saw, from the corner of my eye, Elizabeth’s head tilt reflexively in my direction. 

“No,” I said. “I’m not going to the dance at all.”

“What? Come on, Bella, it’ll be fun.” Mike whined. 

“I’m uh… going to Seattle that Saturday,” I said, lying on the spot. I needed to get out of town anyway -- it was suddenly the perfect time to go. 

“Can’t you go some other weekend?”

“Sorry Mike. But don’t make Jess wait any longer -- it’s rude.” 

Mike muttered something in agreement and walked back to his seat. I pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to push out my sympathy for Mike and stress at what Jessica’s reaction might be. Mr. Banner began talking. I sighed and opened my eyes. 

Elizabeth was staring at me with that same familiar curiosity, even more distinct now in her coal black eyes. I stared back, surprised, expecting her to look away as usual. But she simply continued to gaze with probing intensity into my eyes. My hands started to shake, but I didn’t want to look away. 

“Ms. Cullen?” the teacher called, seeking the answer to a question that I hadn’t heard.

“It would be stopped in G1,” Elizabeth answered, seeming reluctant as she turned to look at Mr. Banner. I looked down at my book as soon as her eyes released me, trying to find my place. I couldn’t believe the rush of emotion pulsing through me. It didn’t feel right to let someone have this much influence over me. When the bell rang at last, I gathered my belongings, expecting her to leave immediately as usual. 

“Bella?” Her voice shouldn’t have been so familiar to me, as if I’d known the sound of it all my life rather than for just a few short weeks. I turned, slowly. I didn’t want to feel whatever emotions I would feel when I looked at her immaculate face. Her expression was unreadable when I finally looked at her. 

“Are we speaking again?” I finally asked, an unintentional note of petulance in my voice. 

Her lips twitched, fighting a smile. She was wearing a dark, burgundy lipstick today, a color which looked exceptionally regal on her. 

“No, not really,” she admitted. 

“So what are we doing right now?” I asked, keeping my eyes closed; it was easier to stay coherent that way. 

“I’m sorry.” She sounded sincere. “I’m being rude, I know. But I think it’s better if we’re not friends.” I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth in annoyance. 

“Too bad you didn’t figure that out earlier,” I hissed. “You could have saved yourself the trouble.”

“Trouble?” The word, and my tone, obviously caught her off guard. “Trouble from what?” 

“The trouble of saving me from that stupid van.” I knew, even as the words came out of my mouth, that I was being petty.

“You think I regret saving your life?” Elizabeth sounded almost angry. 

“You’re not giving me any reasons to think otherwise,” I replied. 

“Well you’re  _ wrong _ ,” she said, and there was a thunderous undertone to her voice that irked me. She was being obstinate, and I didn’t understand why. I simply wanted to be friends, and she was making it unnecessarily complex. I stuffed my items into my backpack, noting with annoyance that a few worksheets were crumpled but too angry to bother to straighten them out. That was the thing about my temper. It took time for my anger to build, but when it finally boiled over… Well, there was a reason Charlie didn’t force me to return to Forks for vacations after I turned fourteen. Elizabeth Cullen was pushing my limits, but deep down I suspected that this time, I was angry at myself. For caring as much as I did, for whatever reason. 

I suffered through a jubilant phone call from Jessica after I arrived home. Mike had caught her after school to accept her invitation. We spent a good five minutes in a persistent back and forth as to whether I could attend the dance, but I held firm to my Seattle excuse. After I hung up, I tried to concentrate on dinner -- dicing the chicken in particular. I didn’t want another trip to the emergency department. But in my head I was rewinding, over and over and over, the conversation I had with Elizabeth today. What did she mean, it was better if we weren’t friends? Had she decided that she was too perfect to associate with mere pedestrians like me or Mike or Jessica? Maybe I wasn’t interesting enough.  _ Is she interesting enough to merit this much angst, Bella _ ? I asked myself. 

_ Well, she might be able to stop a van with her bare hands.  _

I dumped the onions in a bowl and wiped my hands on a towel. It didn’t matter. I could leave her alone. I would leave her alone. Mike and Jessica were more than enough as friends, if Jessica’s crush didn’t blow our little trio up. Even if it did, hopefully some school out in California would offer me a scholarship and I could spend the rest of my academic career basking under scorching sun and accumulating DNA damage. 

I ended up making enchiladas, and even though they weren’t particularly authentic, it was still probably more adventurous than what Charlie was used to eating. But he was brave enough to take a bite, and we were equally surprised by how much he enjoyed it. It was gratifying to watch as he slowly began to trust me in the kitchen. 

“Dad?” I asked when he was almost done. 

“Yeah, Bella?”

“Um, I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to Seattle for the day a week from Saturday. I hope that’s okay with you.”

“Why?” He sounded surprised, as if he were unable to imagine something that Forks couldn’t offer. 

“Well, I wanted to get a few books -- the library here is pretty limited -- and maybe look at some clothes.” I had more spending money than I expected, since Charlie had gifted me the truck. 

“Will you be okay alone? I don’t know if the gas mileage on the truck can make it.”

“I’ll stop in Montesano and Olympia. And Tacoma if I have to, I guess. I’m pretty good with a GPS. I’ll make sure to bring my charging battery,” I said, laying out my plans. 

“Hmm, I don’t see why not,” Charlie said. “Will you be back in time for the dance?”

“I uh, don’t like to dance much,” I grimaced. He nodded in understanding. My mother was the social butterfly, the one who could keep a rhythm. I got my lack of coordination from him, after all. 

The next morning, when I pulled into the parking lot, I made sure to park as far away from the other cars as possible. I fumbled with my key as I got out of the car and it fell into a puddle at my feet. As I bent down to retrieve it, a white hand flashed out and grabbed it before I could. I jerked upright. Elizabeth Cullen was right next to me, leaning casually against my truck. 

“How do you do that?” I asked, both awed and irritated. 

“Do what?” She dropped my keys into my palm. 

“Appear out of thin air.”

“It’s not my fault that you’re unobservant, Bella.” Her voice was as silky and muted as usual. I scowled at her perfect face. Her eyes were light again today, a deep, golden color like the honey I drizzled over my oatmeal in the morning. 

“I’m sorry, that was a little rude,” she laughed. I looked down at my boots, feeling unreasonably pleased at the sound. “I actually had a question for you.”

I sighed. “Yes, what do you want to ask?”

“I was wondering if, a week from Saturday -- you know, the day of the spring dance --” 

“Are you trying to be funny?” I looked up and squinted my eyes at her.  _ It is a girls choice dance, after all.  _

Her eyes were wickedly amused. “I heard you say you were going to Seattle that day, and I was wondering if you wanted a ride.”

Oh. That was unexpected. 

“Excuse me?” I asked, unsure if I had heard right. 

“Do you want a ride to Seattle?”

“With who?” 

“Myself, obviously,” Elizabeth said, enunciating each word carefully. 

“But why?” 

“Well, I was planning to go to Seattle in the next few weeks, and, to be honest, I’m not sure if your truck can make it.” 

“My truck works just fine, thank you for your concern.” I adjusted my backpack over my shoulder and started to walk again, but I was still miffed. 

“We wouldn’t want you wasting gas on the trip though, would we? It  _ is _ a finite resource,” Elizabeth called after me. 

“Honestly, Elizabeth.” I felt a thrill run up my spine as I said her name, and I hated it. “I can’t keep up with you. I thought you didn’t want to be my friend.”

“I said it would be better if we weren’t friends, not that I didn’t want to be.”

“Oh,  _ thanks _ , now that’s all cleared up,” I said, letting the sarcasm drip over my words. I realized I had stopped walking again. We were under the shelter of the cafeteria roof now, so I could more easily look at her face. Her eyelashes were fantastically long, but without the tell-tale clumps of mascara. Were they real, or simply well done extensions? I couldn’t imagine Forks having any good eyelash extension salons. Maybe  _ that’s _ why she needed to go to Seattle. 

Maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible to go on this trip with her. 

“It would be more… prudent for you to not be my friend,” she continued, as I inspected her face, wondering if her lips were naturally coral pink. “But I’m tired of trying to stay away from you, Bella.” Her eyes were gloriously intense as she uttered that last sentence, her voice smoldering. I tore my eyes away from her lips. My heartbeat was picking up pace, fast, and I had no doubt that Elizabeth knew exactly the effect she had on me. 

“Will you go with me to Seattle?” she asked, her voice returning to its usual smoothness. I didn’t trust my voice yet, so I simply nodded. She smiled briefly, and then her face became serious. 

“But you really should stay away from me,” she warned. She turned abruptly and walked back the way we’d come.


	6. Blood Type

The rest of the morning passed in a blur. It was difficult to believe that I hadn’t just imagined what Elizabeth had said. Perhaps it was just a very convincing dream that I’d confused with reality -- After all, I was plagued by her appearances in my dreams. So I was impatient and frightened as Jessica and I entered the cafeteria. I wanted to see her face, to see if she’d gone back to the cold, indifferent person I’d known for the last several weeks. Or, if I’d actually heard what I thought I’d heard this morning. Jessica babbled on and on about her dance plans -- Lauren and Angela had asked the other boys and they were all going together -- completely unaware of my inattention. 

Disappointment flooded through me as my eyes unerringly focused on her table. The other four were there, but she was still absent. Had she gone home? I followed the still-babbling Jessica through the line, my brain whirling through possibilities. 

“Elizabeth Cullen is staring at you again,” Jessica said, finally breaking through my abstraction with some reverse cocktail party phenomenon using Elizabeth’s name. “I wonder why she’s sitting alone today.”

I followed her gaze to see Elizabeth, smiling crookedly, staring at me from an empty table across the cafeteria from where she usually sat. Once she’d caught my eye, she raised one hand and motioned for me to join her. As I stared in disbelief, she winked. 

“Does she mean you?” Jessica asked, and I tried not to feel insulted by the astonishment in her voice. 

“Maybe she needs help with her Biology homework,” I muttered for her benefit. “Um, I’d better go see what she wants.” I could feel Jessica’s eyes boring into my back as I jogged towards Elizabeth’s table. When I reached her table, I stood behind the chair across from her, unsure. 

“Why don’t we have lunch together today?” she asked, smiling. I pulled the chair out from underneath the table and sat down slowly, watching her with caution. She was still smiling. It was hard to believe this was real. I was afraid that she might disappear to the sudden sound of my alarm, and I would open my eyes to find myself in bed. 

She seemed to be waiting for me to say something. 

“This is… different,” I finally managed. 

“Well,” she paused, and then the rest of the words followed in a rush. “I decided as long as I was going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly.” I waited, my mouth slightly open, for her to say something that made sense. The seconds ticked by. 

“You know that I don’t have any idea what you mean,” I eventually pointed out. 

“I know,” she smiled again, and changed the topic. “I think your friends are angry with me for stealing you.”

“I think they’re just confused.” 

“What for?” 

“You don’t…” I hesitated, choosing my next words carefully. “You don’t tend to hang out with people who aren’t your family.” 

“Oh, I suppose you’re right.” Elizabeth swiped her hand through her hair. It had a beautiful copper sheen to it, and I wanted very desperately to know what her secret was.

“So what brought this on?” I asked. 

“I told you, I’m tired of staying away from you. I figured we could be friends, you know, as long as we’re smart about it.”

I looked down at my hands, wrapped around my lemonade bottle. Perhaps unconsciously, I had tightened my hold on it to a vice like grip. 

“What are you thinking?” she asked curiously. 

“I’m trying to figure out what you are,” I replied after a moment. I shifted my gaze up to look her in the eyes, which were extraordinarily bright and reflective. 

“Any luck with that?” Her voice was light and song-like. I shook my head. I had been vacillating during the last month between Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker, and I was not about to own up to that. 

“Won’t you tell me?” she asked, tilting her head to one side with a shockingly tempting smile. 

“Nope, too embarrassing.” 

“Hmm, okay,” Elizabeth paused. “What about a trade?” 

The look on my face must have revealed my confusion, because she continued on after a brief moment. 

“You tell me one theory of yours -- a theory about what I am, I mean -- and in return you can request a favor. Assuming the favor is within my abilities, obviously,” she grinned. 

I leaned back in my chair. Elizabeth’s behavior wasn’t quite adding up. It seemed almost that she  _ wanted _ me to discover the truth behind her strange behavior. But surely there were easier, more straightforward means of doing so. Still, I couldn’t deny my curiosity. 

“Please? Just one?” Elizabeth asked, glancing up at me through long, dark lashes. She leaned in, and I caught a whiff of whatever her perfume was - I couldn’t tell what the scent was, only that my mind was going instantly, catastrophically blank. 

“No laughing,” I said. “Were you, or, uh, your entire family, rather, exposed to something radioactive?” 

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at me. “Bella, I thought you were good at biology. You  _ know _ that’s biologically impossible.” 

I felt my cheeks start to burn, but Elizabeth looked positively delighted, which soothed my wounded ego. 

“No, unfortunately. No radioactivity. And Kryptonite doesn’t bother me either,” she chuckled. 

“Oh. I’ll figure it out eventually,” I said, although I had no idea if I would. 

“I wish you wouldn’t try.” Her voice was serious again. 

“Because…?”

“Well, sometimes the truth is disappointing, you know.”

“I don’t think anything about you could be disappointing.” The words came out of my mouth faster than my brain registered them. Surprised, I took a long sip from my lemonade while trying to avoid looking at Elizabeth’s expression. 

“Anyways, the favor. Please, if you’re going to ignore me again, let me know in advance,” I said as I screwed the cap back onto my lemonade. It felt like there were better things to ask her for, but her ever fluctuating attitude towards me drove me insane. 

“I can do that,” she said, her voice barely audible. I let the silence stretch out between us until I glanced up at the cafeteria clock. I jumped to my feet. 

“We’re going to be late.”

“Oh, I’m not going to class today,” she said. 

“Why not?” 

“It’s healthy to ditch now and then.” She smiled up at me, but it didn’t reach her eyes. 

“Well, I’m going,” I told her. I was far too big a coward to risk getting caught. 

“I’ll see you later then, Bella.” She turned her attention to her phone, which had somehow materialized onto the cafeteria table without me noticing. I hesitated, torn, but then the first bell sent me hurrying out the door. As I slid into my seat in biology, barely making it on time, Mike caught my eye with a gesture that seemed to say  _ where were you _ and  _ what was that _ all at once. I gestured back with a shrug, making a mental note to text Jessica later to apologize for ditching her at lunch. Mr. Banner came into the room then, cardboard boxes in his arms. 

“Okay, guys, today we will be blood typing. I want you all to take one kit per table,” he said as he produced a pair of rubber gloves from the pocket of his lab jacket and pulled them on. The sharp sound as the gloves snapped into place against his wrists carried an ominous tone. I watched with muted interest as he explained the steps of the lab, until he held up the sterile micro-lancet. It was just a small piece of tiny blue plastic with a barb that was practically invisible, but my stomach still flipped. 

“I’ll be coming around with water to prepare your cards, so please wait until I get to you. Once I arrive, I want you to carefully prick your finger with the lancet…” He grabbed Mike’s hand and jabbed the spike into the tip of Mike’s ring finger. I felt a sharp jab in my abdomen, the same phantom pain I always felt when I saw people bleed. Mr. Banner continued the demonstration, squeezing Mike’s finger until the blood flower. I swallowed convulsively, my stomach heaving. 

I didn’t realize that I had closed my eyes until Mr. Banner finally circled around to me. 

“Bella, are you all right?” Mr. Banner asked. 

“I already know my blood type, Mr. Banner,” I said in a weak voice. I was afraid to raise my head. 

“Are you feeling faint?”

I nodded, slightly regretting not ditching when I had the chance. 

“Can someone take Bella to the nurse, please?” he called. Mike, ever chivalrous, slid over by my desk and held out an arm to steady me. 

“Thanks Mike,” I said, my eyes still fixated on the tiles beneath my feet. The two of us made our way out of the classroom towards the nurse’s office. I tried very hard not to pass out in the hallway, as the last thing I wanted was more unwarranted attention. 

“Wow, you’re actually green, Bella,” Mike said nervously. “Let’s sit.”

I sat down at an empty bench and took a deep breath. I was glad that I had at least showed up to class, as I wouldn’t be marked as an unexcused absence, but clearly I did not have a future in healthcare. My surroundings were beginning to melt together into a dark blob. 

“Bella?” a different voice, unmistakably female, called from the distance. I groaned. 

“Are you hurt?” Her voice was closer now, and she sounded upset. 

“I think she’s dizzy. Bella, are you okay? Bella?” Mike asked, concerned. 

“I’ve been better,” I managed. “I can make it to the nurse’s office though.”

But as I stood up, it became painfully obvious that I could  _ not _ , in fact, make it to the nurse’s office, as my vision blurred to black and all my limbs seemed to vanish entirely. 

Not that it mattered. By the time I regained consciousness, Elizabeth had scooped me up in her arms, as easily as if I weighed a hundred pounds less. 

“Put me down, please,” I moaned. The rocking movement of her walk was not helping. She held me slightly away from her body, gingerly, supporting all my weight with just her arms -- it didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. The full extent of her height compared to mine was immediately appreciable. 

“You faint at the sight of blood?” she asked. This seemed to entertain her. 

I didn’t answer. I closed my eyes again and fought the wave of nausea crashing over me. 

“And not even your own blood,” she continued, enjoying herself. I heard a door open, and a woman’s voice gasp. 

“She fainted in Biology,” Elizabeth explained. 

I peeled my eyelids open. I was in the office, and Elizabeth was striding past the front counter toward the nurse’s door. Mike held it open as Elizabeth swung me into the room and placed me gently onto the crackly paper that covered the bed in the nurse’s office. She moved back to stand against the wall, as far across the narrow room as possible. 

“She’s just a little faint,” she reassured the startled nurse. “They’re blood typing in Biology.”

The nurse nodded sagely. “There’s always one.”

Elizabeth muffled a snicker. 

“Just lie down for a minute, honey; it’ll pass.”

“I know,” I sighed, as my head hit the paper-covered pillow. The nausea was already fading. 

“Does this happen a lot?” the nurse asked. 

“Sometimes,” I admitted. Elizabeth coughed to hide another laugh. 

“You can go back to class now,” the nurse told her. 

“I’m supposed to stay with her.” She said this with such assured authority that the nurse didn’t argue it further. 

Elizabeth and I exchanged a few words in a hushed tone -- apparently she’d been in her car, listening to music -- before the door opened and a teacher I didn’t recognize popped her head in. 

“We’ve got another one,” she warned. 

I propped myself up. The mint green walls stayed where they should. There was still a little ringing in my ears, but otherwise I felt back to normal. 

Mike staggered through the door, now supporting a sallow-looking Lee Stephens, another boy in our Biology class. I flashed two thumbs up at Mike, who smiled back. 

“Oh no,” Elizabeth muttered. “Go out to the office, Bella.” I looked up at her, bewildered. 

“Trust me -- go.”

I spun and caught the door before it closed, darting out of the infirmary. I could feel Elizabeth right behind me. 

“Oh,” I said, wrinkling my nose after I passed by Lee. “I can smell the blood.”

“People can’t smell blood,” Elizabeth contradicted, inspecting her nails. 

“Well, I can -- it smells like rust, and salt. I think that’s what makes me sick. Smelling rust makes me queasy too.”

Elizabeth was staring at me with an unfathomable expression. Mike came through the door then, looking tired. 

“Lee weighs more than you, that’s for sure, Bella,” he joked. “Are you well enough to go to Gym?” 

“Gym,” I groaned. “I’ll see.” 

“Well, I hope you show up. I have to go back to class now. See ya!” Mike jogged off, already back to his usual perky self. 

“I can take care of that,” Elizabeth said, strolling towards the secretary’s desk. “Mrs. Cope? Bella has Gym next block, and I don’t think she feels well enough. Actually, I was thinking I should take her home now. Do you think you could excuse her from class?” Her voice was like melting honey. I could imagine how much more overwhelming her eyes would be. 

“Do you need to be excused too, Elizabeth?” Ms. Cope fluttered. Why couldn’t I do that?

“No, I have a free block next.” 

“Okay, it’s all taken care of. You feel better, Bella,” she called to me. I nodded weakly, hammering it up just a bit. 

“Can you walk, or do you want me to carry you again?” With her back to the receptionist, her expression became sarcastic. I stuck my tongue out her as I walked by her, and out into the cold fine mist that had begun to fall outside in the parking lot.

“Are you going on the trip to La Push this Saturday?” I asked, trying my best to continue the conversation. I couldn’t picture Elizabeth loading up to carpool with the rest of the kids from school, but I was eager to have another chance to talk to her. 

“ I really don’t think I was invited,” Elizabeth said, picking at her cuticles again. 

I sighed. “I just invited you.”

“It’d be rude to show up. And I’m not much for the outdoors.” 

I supposed that made sense. Something about Elizabeth felt very urban and glamorous, like she would feel more at home in large cities and fancy parties. I tucked my disappointment away and veered left, toward my truck. Something caught my jacket, yanking me back. 

“Whoa there, where do you think you’re going?” Elizabeth was gripping a fistful of my jacket in one hand. 

“Going home? Isn’t that why I’m ditching gym?”

“I  _ did _ promise Ms. Cope I’d take you home. You’re not fit to drive.”

“But what about my truck?” I asked, confused. 

“I’ll have Alice drop it off after school.” She was pulling me toward her car now, still holding onto my jacket. I protested slightly, feeling bad about making her go out of her way, but gave in as Elizabeth opened the passenger door and gestured for me to get in. 

I slid in, cringing at the sight of my rain-damp hair in the driver’s mirror as I did. Elizabeth fiddled with the controls, turning the heater up and the music down. I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it as I realized I couldn’t think of anything else to talk about. We were out of the parking lot by the time I recognized the music playing. 

“Is this Clair de Lune?” I asked, surprised. 

“Yes! Do you listen to Debussy?” Elizabeth sounded surprised too. 

“Not really,” I admitted. “But my mother loves classical music. I recognize some of the ones she plays around the house.”

“This is one of my favorites,” Elizabeth said. I leaned back into my seat. It was hard not to relax to the familiar, soothing melody. The rain blurred everything outside the window into gray and green smudges. I began to realize we were driving very fast; the car moved so steadily, so evenly, though, I didn’t feel the speed. Only the town flashing by gave it away. 

“What is your mother like?” she asked me suddenly. 

“Hmm. We look a lot alike. She’s a lot more outgoing though. I take after my dad’s personality. She’s irresponsible and slightly eccentric, and she’s a very unpredictable cook.” I paused. “She’s probably my best friend.”

“You get along better with adults?” Elizabeth’s tone was reproachful; it made me laugh. 

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. My mom always said I was a middle-aged woman born into a kid’s body. Maybe I sucked all the maturity out of her.” I turned to look at Elizabeth. “ _ You _ don’t act much like our age, either.” 

Elizabeth shrugged and changed the subject. 

“So why did your mother marry Phil?”

I was surprised she remembered Phil’s name; I’d mentioned it just once, almost two months ago. It took me a moment to answer. 

“Well, my mom’s pretty young for her age. Phil’s a fun guy. She’s crazy about him.”

“Do you approve?” she asked. 

“Eh, he’s not my type, but does it matter?” I countered. “She’s the one dating him.”

“So what is your type?” 

I was surprised by the question. Elizabeth seemed above the usual petty gossip that teenage girls were notorious for. I thought about my answer for a moment. 

“I suppose people who are very… classically beautiful?” The truth was that I didn’t really have much of a type. 

“People? Not boys?” Elizabeth’s tone was light, but I could hear the curiosity lurking beneath. 

I felt my ears burn. “Hey, attractive people are attractive regardless of gender.” 

I could see Elizabeth’s reflection in the mirror. She was smiling in a way that instantly told me she was plotting something. 

“Am I attractive?”

My mouth fell open. “Do you really need to ask?” 

“Maybe I should have worded that better,” Elizabeth said, her expression turning serious. “Do  _ you _ find me attractive?”

I hesitated. The answer was undoubtedly yes, but admitting to it felt like it would be giving Elizabeth too much power over me. 

“I think most people would,” I finally said. Elizabeth pursed her lips at my vague answer, but we pulled into my street before she could press me any further. 

“This is my house,” I said. “Thanks so much for the ride.” I didn’t really want to get out of the car. 

“No problem. We’ll get your truck back before Chief Swan gets home, so you don’t have to tell him about the Biology incident.” Elizabeth grinned at me. 

“I’m sure he’s heard. There are no secrets in Forks,” I sighed. 

“You’d be surprised,” she laughed. “Oh, and one last thing. Stay safe this weekend, alright? Try not to fall into the ocean or get run over or something. I can’t always be there to save you.” 

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said, feeling indignant. I disliked the idea of needing someone to rescue me, even if it was Elizabeth. She fluttered her fingers in a wave as I closed the car door. 

She was still smiling as she drove away. 


	7. Scary Stories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, thanks for reading this. I'm working on the next chapter right now, and hopefully it will be up in the next few days. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed reading this, it helps keep my motivation to write up :)

As I sat in my room, absentmindedly annotating the third act of Macbeth, I was really listening for my truck. I would have thought, even over the pounding rain, I could have heard the engine’s roat. But when I went to peek out the curtain -- again -- it was suddenly there. 

The next day, it felt like everyone made a comment about the fainting episode. Jessica and Mike had a blast making fun of me for being queasy, although Mike seemed to sense my reluctance to bring up Elizabeth’s involvement. Still, that didn’t stop Jessica from asking me questions about lunch.

“So what did Elizabeth want yesterday?” Jessica asked in Trig. 

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “She never really had a point.”

“You looked a little nervous,” she fished. 

“Did I?” I had no idea.

“Yeah, like she was gonna eat you alive or something. But she’s never sat with anyone but her family before. That was weird.”

I nodded in agreement. Jessica was looking at me with an expression I wasn’t used to. She looked impressed, as if managing to have a conversation with Elizabeth Cullen was an achievement. Maybe it was. 

But the disappointment of the day was that, even though I knew she wasn’t going to be there, I still hoped. When I walked into the cafeteria with Jessica and Mike, I couldn’t stop my head from swiveling towards her table, where Rosalie, Alice, and Jasper sat talking, heads close together. There was an impatient energy running through me, a sort of eagerness to see her again, to have another conversation to decipher. 

Mike was hopeful about the trip the next day, putting a great deal of trust in the local weatherman who promised sun tomorrow. I was hesitant, but it was warmer today - almost sixty. Perhaps I could be hopeful about the outing. 

That night at dinner, Charlie seemed enthusiastic about my trip to La Push in the morning. I think he felt guilty for leaving me home alone on the weekends, but he’d spent too many years building his habits to break them now. Of course he knew the names of all the kids going, and their parents, and their great-grandparents too, probably. He _loved_ that I was friends with Mike. I wondered if he would approve of my plan to ride to Seattle with Elizabeth. Not that I was going to tell him. 

The one benefit to living in Forks was that I no longer needed to cover my windows in heavy drapes if I wanted to sleep past six thirty in the morning. So I was surprised when I groggily cracked open my eyes the next day, only to be met with actual light. I hurried to the window to check, and sure enough, there was the sun. It felt too low in the sky, and definitely not as close as I liked, but it was definitely the sun. A few clouds ringed the horizon, but a large patch of blue was visible in the middle. I could barely hold down my glee. 

A bunch of my classmates were gathered by our meeting spot. I recognized Ben and Conner from Trig, and Angela and Lauren, and Jessica, obviously. 

“Will you ride in our car?” Jessica asked. “It’s that or Lee’s mom’s minivan,” she added, her voice dropping to a whisper. 

“You can have shotgun,” Mike said, and Jessica elbowed him. 

“Hey, you’re not the one who’s going to be left out of the conversation if we stuff you in the back,” Mike protested. Jessica scrunched her nose up in response, which made me laugh. 

“It’s okay, you can sit in the shotgun seat”

“Really?” Jessica asked. 

“Yeah, I think it has the highest fatality rate in a car crash or something,” I said, pulling up an old statistic I’d read years ago. Jessica’s mouth dropped open.

“ _Bella_!” She smacked me on the arm with fake outrage.

“I’d never get us into a car crash,” Mike said mournfully, and I felt a little bad about the joke. Mike was too sincere. 

It was only fifteen miles to La Push from Forks, with gorgeous, dense green forests edging the road most of the way and the wide Quillayute River snaking beneath it twice. I stuck my arm out of the window, trying to absorb as much sunlight as possible. Even though I’d been to the beaches around La Push many times during my Forks summers with Charlie, the mile-long crescent of First Beach was still breathtaking. The water was a dark, somber gray, crashing relentlessly into the rocky shore. Islands rose out of the steel harbor waters with sheer cliff sides, reaching to uneven summits, and crowned with austere, soaring firs. The beach had only a thin border of actual sand at the water’s edge, after which it grew into millions of large, smooth stones that looked uniformly gray from a distance, but up close were every shade a stone could be: terracotta, sea green, lavender, blue gray, and a sooty black. The tide line was strewn with huge driftwood trees, bleached bone white in the salt waves, some piled together against the edge of the forest fringe, some lying solitary, just out of reach of the waves. 

We picked our way down to the beach, Mike leading the way to a ring of driftwood logs that had obviously been used for parties like ours before. 

“Have you ever seen a driftwood fire?” Mike asked me. I was sitting on one of the bone-colored benches; the other girls clustered, gossiping excitedly, on either side of me. Mike was carefully lighting one of the smaller sticks with a cigarette lighter.

“No,” I said as he placed a blazing twig against the teepee. 

“Pay attention to the colors.” He lit another branch and laid it alongside the first. 

The fire was blue, like the kind we saw in chem labs. 

“Something about the salt. You’d know better than me,” Mike shrugged. He wedged himself next to Jessica, and the two started chatting about a television show that I hadn’t seen. After a half hour of conversation, some of the boys wanted to hike to the nearby tidal pools. I was already up and running towards one of the boys when I realized none of the other girls were following. 

“I’m not wearing the right shoes, sorry!” Lauren yelled. 

“Have fun!” Jessica waved. Mike stuck his tongue at her before joining me. 

The hike wasn’t too long, though I hated to lose the sky in the woods. The green light of the forest was strangely at odds with the adolescent laughter, too murky and ominous to be in harmony with the light banter around me. I had to watch each step I took very carefully, and Mike graciously slowed down to match my pace. Eventually, we broke through the emerald confines of the forest and found the rocky shore again. It was low tide, and a tidal river flowed past us on its way to the sea. Along its pebbled banks, shallow pools that never completely drained were teeming with life. 

I knew better than to join the boys skittering over the rocks, perching precariously on the edges. After all, I did promise Elizabeth that I wouldn’t fall into the ocean. Instead, I found a very stable-looking rock on the fringe of one of the largest pools and sat there cautiously, leaving a good margin between me and the edge, and studied the natural aquarium below me. The bouquets of brilliant anemones undulated ceaselessly in the invisible current, twisted shells scurried about the edges, starfish stuck motionless to the rocks and each other. I dipped my hand into the water and watched, spellbound, as a tiny black fish darted around my fingers. The truth was that I loved the outdoors, and I missed it more than I was willing to admit. 

I could have stayed for much longer, but the boys got hungry, and I peeled myself reluctantly off the rock to follow them back. When we got back to First Beach, the group we’d left behind had multiplied. As we got closer we could see the shining, straight black hair and copper skin of the newcomers, teenagers from the reservation come to socialize. 

The food was already being passed around, and the boys hurried to claim a share while we each introduced ourselves as we entered the driftwood circle. As I said my name, I noticed a younger boy sitting on the stones near the fire glance up at me in interest. I sat down next to Angela, and Mike brought us sandwiches and an array of sodas to choose from. A boy who looked to be the oldest of the visitors rattled off the names of the seven others with him. All I caught was that one of the girls was also named Jessica, and the boy who noticed me was named Jacob. 

Angela wasn’t much of a conversationalist, which suited me just fine. I reflected on the trip, thinking about how disjointedly time seemed to flow in Forks, passing in a blur at times, with single images standing out more clearly than others. I felt that the tide pool would remain a vivid memory, and was momentarily pleased with my decision to come on the trip. I was very nearly alone on my driftwood log by the time I realized that other people had scattered, some back to the tide pools, some to the village shop. Eventually, it was just me, Lauren, Tyler, and three teenagers from the reservation perched around the circle, including the boy named Jacob and the oldest boy who had acted as spokesperson. 

Jacob sauntered over to where Angela had been sitting by my side. He looked fourteen, maybe fifteen, and had long, glossy black hair pulled back with a rubber band at the nape of his neck. His skin was beautiful, silky and russet-colored; his eyes were dark, set deep above the high planes of his cheekbones. He still had just a hint of childish roundness left around his chin. Altogether, a very pretty face. However, my positive opinion of his looks was damaged by the first words out of his mouth. 

“You’re Isabella Swan, aren’t you?”

It was like the first day of school all over again. 

“Just Bella is fine,” I sighed. 

“I’m Jacob Black.” He held his hand out in a friendly gesture. “You bought my dad’s truck.”

“Oh,” I said, relieved, shaking his sleek hand. “You’re Billy’s son. I should probably remember you.”

“No, I’m the youngest of the family -- you would remember my older sisters.”

“Rachel and Rebecca,” I suddenly recalled. Charlie and Billy had thrown us together a lot during my visits, to keep us busy while they fished. We were all too shy to make much progress as friends. 

“Are they here?” I squinted at the girls at the ocean’s edge, wondering if I would recognize them now. 

Jacob shook his head. “Rachel got a scholarship to Washington State, and Rebecca married a Samoan surfer -- she lives in Hawaii now.”

“Married. Wow.” I was stunned. The twins were only a little over a year older than I was. 

“So how do you like the truck?” he asked. 

“I love it. It runs great.”

“Yeah, but it’s really slow,” he laughed. “I was so relieved when Charlie bought it. My dad wouldn’t let me work on building another car while we still had it.”

“It’s not that slow,” I objected. 

“Have you tried to go over sixty?”

“No,” I admitted. 

“Good. Don’t.” He grinned. 

I couldn’t help grinning back. “It does great in a collision,” I offered in my truck’s defense. 

“I don’t think a tank could take out that old monster,” he agreed with another laugh. 

“So you build cars?” I asked, impressed. 

“When I have free time, and parts. You wouldn’t happen to know where I could get my hands on a master cylinder for a 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit?” he added jokingly. His voice was pleasant, husky. 

“Sorry, I’d love to help but I don’t know what that is,” I laughed. He was very easy to talk to, and full of laughter. 

“Hey, Bella,” Tyler yelled suddenly across the circle. “Heard you were talking to Elizabeth Cullen the other day. Why didn’t you invite her?” 

“You mean Dr. Carlisle Cullen’s family?” the tall, older boy asked before I could respond. He was really closer to a man than a boy, and his voice was very deep. 

“Yeah, you know them?” Tyler asked. 

“The Cullens don’t come here,” he said in a tone that closed the subject, ignoring her question. Tyler shrugged and turned his attention back to Lauren. I stared at the deep-voiced boy, taken aback, but he was looking toward the dark forest behind us. He’d said that the Cullens didn’t come here, but his tone had implied something more - that they weren’t allowed; they were prohibited. His manner left a strange impression on me, and I tried to ignore it without success. 

Jacob interrupted my thoughts. “So is Forks driving you insane yet?”

“It’s… an adjustment,” I grimaced. He grinned in understanding. I was still turning over the brief comment on the Cullens. It was like a piece of popcorn stuck in my teeth, and my mind kept running over it. I looked at Jacob, and hoped that he might have the answers. 

“Do you want to walk down the beach with me?” I asked him, as sweetly as possible. 

“Sure, why not?” he said, standing up. 

As we walked north across the multihued stones, the clouds finally closed ranks across the sky, causing the temperatures to drop. I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my jacket. 

“So you’re what, sixteen?” I asked, trying to flatter him. 

“I just turned fifteen,” he confessed, but the expression on his face revealed his pleasure at my guess. 

“You’re tall for your age,” I said, and he laughed. It was true - he _was_ tall. I had to tilt my head back to look at him properly, now that we were standing. 

“Do you come up to Forks much?” I asked, trying my best to keep the small talk going. 

“Not too much,” he admitted with a frown. “I’m waiting to get my license so I can drive up more.”

“Who was that other boy with us? He seemed a little old to be hanging out with us.”

“Oh, that’s Sam -- he’s nineteen,” Jacob informed me. 

“What was that he was saying about the doctor’s family?” I asked innocently. 

“The Cullens? Oh, they’re not supposed to come onto the reservation.” He looked away, out toward James Island, as he confirmed what I’d thought I’d heard in Sam’s voice. 

“Why not?”

He glanced back at me, biting his lip. “Oops, I’m not supposed to say anything about that.”

“Oh, I won’t tell anyone, I’m just curious.” I smiled. Which was also true. I knew myself well enough not to try any elaborate lies. 

“Hmm… Do you like scary stories?” He asked ominously. 

“I’m okay with them. Why?” 

Jacob strolled to a nearby driftwood tree that had its roots sticking out like the attenuated legs of a huge, pale spider. He perched lightly on one of the twisted roots while I hauled myself onto the body of the tree. He stared down at the rocks, a smile hovering around the edges of his broad lips. I could see he was going to try to make this good. 

“Do you know any of our old stories, about where we came from -- the Quileutes, I mean?”

“No, not really.”

“Well, there are lots of legends, some of them claiming to date back to the Flood - supposedly, the ancient Quileutes tied their canoes to the tops of the tallest trees on the mountain to survive like Noah and the ark.” He smiled, to show me how little stock he put in the histories. 

“Another legend claims that we descended from wolves - and that the wolves are our brothers still. It’s against tribal law to kill them. 

“Then there are stories about the cold ones.” His voice dropped a little lower. 

“The cold ones?” I asked, unable to hide my interest. 

“Yes. There are stories of the cold ones as the wolf legends, and some much more recent. According to legend, my own great-grandfather knew some of them. He was the one who made the treaty that kept them off our land.” He rolled his eyes. 

“Your great-grandfather?” I encouraged. 

“He was a tribal elder, like my father. You see, the cold ones are the natural enemies of the wolf -- well, not the wolf really, but the wolves that turn into men, like our ancestors. You would call them werewolves.”

“Werewolves have enemies?”

“Only one.”

I stared at him, trying to guess what he meant. 

“So you see,” Jacob continued, “the cold ones are traditionally our enemies. But the pack that came to our territory during my great-grandfather’s time was different. They didn’t hunt like the others of their kind. So my great-grandfather made a truce with them. If they would promise to stay off our lands, we wouldn’t expose them.” He winked at me. 

“If they weren’t dangerous, then why… ?” I tried to understand, struggling not to let him see how seriously I was considering his ghost story. 

“There’s always a risk for humans to be around the cold ones, even if they’re civilized like this clan was. You never know when they might get too hungry to resist.” He deliberately worked a thick edge of menace into his tone. 

“What do you mean by ‘civilized’?” 

“They claim they didn’t hunt humans. They supposedly were able to prey on animals instead.”

“So… how does that fit in with the Cullens? Are they like the cold ones your great-grandfather met?”

“No.” Jacob paused dramatically. “They’re the same ones.” 

I motioned for him to continue. He smiled, pleased by my engagement. 

“There’s more of them now, a new female and a new male, but the rest of the same. In my great-grandfather’s time they already knew of the leader, Carlisle. He’d been here and gone before your people had even arrived.” 

“And what are they?” I finally asked. “What are the cold ones?” 

“Blood drinkers,” Jacob replied in a chilling voice. “Vampires, I guess.”

I stared out at the rough surf after he answered, not sure what expression I was making. 

“You have goose bumps,” he laughed delightedly. 

“You’re a good storyteller,” I complimented him, still staring into the waves. 

“Pretty crazy, right? No wonder my dad doesn’t want us to talk about it.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t give you away,” I said. 

“I guess I just violated the treaty,” he said, though he didn’t sound particularly regretful. 

“I’ll take it to the grave,” I promised, and then I shivered. 

“OK, but seriously, don’t tell your dad. He was pretty mad at my dad when he heard that some of us weren’t going to the hospital since Dr. Cullen started working there.”

“I won’t, of course not.” I hardly told Charlie anything as is. 

“So do you think we’re a bunch of superstitious natives or what?” He asked in a playful tone, but I sensed a hint of worry underneath. I still hadn’t looked away from the ocean. 

I turned and smiled as best as I could. “No, I think you’re very good at telling scary stories, though. I still have goose bumps, see?” I held up my arm. 

“Cool.” He smiled. 

And then the sound of the beach rocks clattering against each other warned that someone was approaching. Our heads snapped up at the same time to see Mike and Jessica about fifty yards away, walking toward us.

“There you are, Bella,” Mike called in relief, waving his arm over his head. 

“Is that your boyfriend?” Jacob asked, and I looked at him in surprise. There was a jealous edge to his voice, but I could have been imagining it.

“No, definitely not,” I whispered. “I’m trying to get him with the girl next to him,” I added. 

“Ah,” Jacob smiled. 

“You should come see me in Forks. We could hang out sometime,” I said. He felt like someone I could easily be friends with. 

“Thank _god_ , we thought you got lost in the woods or fell into the ocean or something and I was so worried because like, what would we tell your dad?” Jessica gushed as she finally reached me. 

“Anyways, we’re packing up now,” Mike said, apologetic. “It looks like it might rain soon.”

We all looked up at the glowering sky. 

“Okay,” I jumped up. “I’m coming.”

“It was nice to see you again,” Jacob said, and I could already sense Jessica’s impending questions. 

“It really was. I’ll tag along next time Charlie comes down to see Billy. And thanks, for the ghost story,” I added earnestly. 

I pulled up my hood as we tramped across the rocks toward the parking lot. A few drops were beginning to fall, making black spots on the stones where they landed. I crawled into the backseat by Angela and Tyler and laid my head back on the seat as I closed my eyes and tried very, very hard not to think. 


	8. Nightmare

I fell asleep far too fast when I finally got home. My poor brain, besieged by information, promptly shut down as soon as my head hit the pillow. I’m not entirely sure if I even managed to brush my teeth. But it was an uneasy sleep, the kind where my muscles stayed tense and the knot in my stomach never loosened. 

I opened my eyes to a familiar place. Aware in some corner of my consciousness that I was dreaming, I recognized the green light of the forest. I could hear the waves crashing against the rocks somewhere nearby. And I knew that if I found the ocean, I’d be able to see the sun. I was trying to follow the sound, but then Jacob Black was there, tugging on my hand, pulling me back toward the blackest part of the forest. 

“Jacob? What’s wrong?” I asked. His face was frightened as he yanked with all his strength against my resistance; I didn’t want to go into the dark. 

“Run, Bella, you have to run!” he whispered, terrified. 

“This way, Bella!” I recognized Mike’s voice calling out of the gloomy heart of the trees, but I couldn’t see him. 

“Why?” I asked, still pulling against Jacob’s grasp, desperate now to find the sun. But Jacob let go of my hand and yelped, suddenly shaking, falling to the dim forest floor. He twitched on the ground as I watched in horror. 

“Jacob!” I screamed. But he was already gone. In his place was a large red-brown wolf with black eyes. The wolf faced away from me, pointing toward the shore, the hair on the back of his shoulders bristling, low growls issuing from between his exposed fangs. 

“Bella, run!” Mike cried out again from behind me. But I didn’t run. I was watching a light coming toward me from the beach. And then Elizabeth stepped out from the trees, her skin faintly glowing, her eyes black and dangerous. She held up one hand and beckoned me to come to her. The wolf growled at my feet. 

I took a step forward, toward Elizabeth. She smiled then, and her teeth were disturbingly sharp. 

“Trust me,” she purred. 

I took another step. 

The wolf launched himself across the space between me and the vampire, fangs aiming for the jugular. 

“No!” I screamed, wrenching upright out of my bed. My sudden movement caused my phone to fall off my bed, and it clattered to the wooden floor. My light was still on, and I was sitting fully dressed on the bed, with my shoes on. I glanced, disoriented, at the clock on my dresser. It was five-thirty in the morning. I groaned, fell back, and rolled over onto my face, kicking off my boots. I was too uncomfortable to get anywhere near sleep though. I could feel the braid in my hair, an uncomfortable ridge digging into the back of my skull. I turned onto my side and ripped the elastic out, quickly combing through the plaits with my fingers. I pulled the pillow back over my eyes. 

It was all no use, of course. My subconscious had dredged up exactly the images I’d been trying so desperately to avoid. I was going to have to face them now. I sat up, and my head spun for a minute as the blood flowed downward. First things first, I thought to myself, happy to put it off as long as possible. I grabbed my bathroom bag. 

The shower didn’t last nearly as long as I hoped it would, though. Even taking the time to blow-dry my hair, I was soon out of things to do in the bathroom. Wrapped in a towel, I crossed back to my room. I couldn’t tell if Charlie was still asleep, or if he had already left. I peered out the window, and the cruiser was gone. Fishing again. I dressed slowly in my most comfy sweats and then made my bed -- something I never did. And then I sat down at my desk and turned on my computer, unable to put it off any longer. 

I hated using the Internet here, because it was so slow. While my computer loaded, I decided to get myself a bowl of cereal to pass the time. There was nothing but Cheerios in the cupboard, and I made a mental note to get more options the next time I went to the supermarket. I ate slowly, chewing each bite with care. When I finished, I dragged myself upstairs and procrastinated on YouTube for another few minutes, under the guise of picking a background playlist. But eventually, I had no choice but to get started on the task at hand. I started on Wikipedia, the bane of every teacher’s existence, but admittedly the easiest place to begin any research. I clicked through god knows how many sites before I finally stumbled across a site labeled  _ Vampires A-Z _ , with a simple white background and pleasingly academic looking text. Two quotes greeted me on the home page. 

_ Throughout the vast shadowy world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so dreaded and abhorred, yet dight with such fearful fascination, as the vampire, who is himself neither ghost nor demon, but yet who partakes the dark natures and possesses the mysterious and terrible qualities of both -- Rev. Montague Summers.  _

_ If there is in this world a well attested account, it is that of the vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires? -- Rousseau _ .

The rest of the site was an alphabetized listing of all the different myths of vampires held throughout the world. The first I clicked on, the Danag, was a Filipino vampire supposedly responsible for planting taro on the islands long ago. The myth continued that the Danag worked with humans for many years, but the partnership ended one day when a woman cut her finger and a Danag sucked her wound, enjoying the taste so much that it drained her body completely of blood. 

I read carefully through the descriptions, looking for anything that sounded familiar, let alone plausible. It seemed that most vampire myths centered around beautiful women as demons and children as victims; they also seemed like constructs created to explain the high mortality rates for young children, and to give men an excuse for infidelity. There were only a few myths featuring vampires preoccupied with drinking blood, and even fewer that coincided with Jacob’s stories or my own observations. 

I flung myself into my meticulously made bed and sighed into my pillow. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from my reading today was that vampires were weak to the sun and came out only at night. Vines of embarrassment began crawling over me, replacing the shards of irritation. It was all so stupid. I was sitting in my room, researching vampires. What was wrong with me? I rolled over, my temper rising with every minute. 

Could the Cullens be vampires? My mind immediately responded with a resounding negative, but there were a few things that bewildered me - the impossible speed and strength, the shifting eye colors, the homogenous beauty, and how they never seemed to eat. Elizabeth  _ had _ skipped class the day we’d done blood typing. And obviously, she hadn’t come with us to La Push, even though I had done my best to invite her. 

Well, they were something. Something outside the possibility of rational justification was taking place in front of my incredulous eyes. Elizabeth Cullen was not human, or at least not entirely so. That would have to be my answer for now. And then the most important question of all. What was I going to do if it was true? No one would believe me, so I really only had two practical options. The first was to take her advice and avoid her as much as possible, building an impenetrably thick wall between us in the one class where we were forced together. But I didn’t really want to do that. I couldn’t deny my curiosity about who or  _ what _ she was. 

_ Curiosity killed the cat.  _ Maybe it was stupid of me to pursue this. If she were really a vampire she could easily kill me. But even if she were something sinister, without her I would be a dent in Tyler’s fender. A reflex to save lives couldn’t be something terrible.  _ Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back _ . My second option was to get proof, irrefutable proof that Elizabeth was something other. And to do that I had to stay close to her, waiting for the inevitable slip up. To properly document the supernatural was a prospect that appealed immensely to me, even though I knew the public would never believe me. 

The rest of the day was quiet, productive -- I finished my paper and started my other assignments. Charlie came home with a large catch, and I made another note to pick up a book of recipes for fish while I was in Seattle next week. A chill skittered over my spine when I thought of a trip with Elizabeth, but it wasn’t quite fear. Anticipation, maybe. I slept dreamlessly that night, exhausted from beginning my day so early, and sleeping so poorly the night before. As if to reward me for my suffering, I woke to the bright yellow light of a sunny day. When I skipped out of the door after breakfast, the air was warm and hardly windy at all. My blood was electric in my veins. 

My good mood lasted all the way until I made my way into the cafeteria, when Mike approached me in a panic about the essay. 

“What are you writing yours on?” he asked, his eyes huge. 

“Whether Shakespeare’s treatment of his female characters is misogynistic.”

“Do you have any ideas for what I can write mine on?”

I rubbed my temples in frustration. “Mike, I’d be happy to read your essay for you when you’re done, but I can’t just come up with an idea for you.”

“Oh, I know. I guess I’ll just have to work on that tonight then,” he sighed. 

At lunch, Jessica gleefully informed me that she, Angela, and Lauren were going to Port Angeles to go dress shopping for the dance, and she wanted me to come, too, even though I didn’t need one. I was indecisive, knowing that my mood might very well change by the end of the day. So I gave her a maybe, telling her I’d have to talk with Charlie first. She talked of nothing but the dance on the way to Spanish, continuing as if without an interruption when class finally ended and we were on our way to lunch. I tuned much of it out in my excitement to see not just Elizabeth but all the Cullens -- to compare them with the new suspicions that plagued my mind. As I crossed the threshold of the cafeteria, I felt the first true tingle of fear. Would they be able to know what I was thinking? And then a different feeling jolted through me. Would Elizabeth be waiting to sit with me again?

But there was nothing waiting for me at the Cullens’ table. The cafeteria was nearly filled, but there was no sign of Elizabeth or any of her family. Disappointment hit me with crippling strength as I turned my attention back onto Jessica. I took some comfort in noticing that Mike held the chair out politely for Jessica, and that her face lit up in response. But my last shred of hope evaporated when I entered Biology and saw Elizabeth’s empty seat. The rest of the day seemed to pass at a slow, deadened pace. I was glad to leave campus, so I could go home and recalibrate. Right as I walked in the door of the house, Jessica called to cancel our plans. Mike had asked her out to dinner. I was sincerely pleased that they finally seemed to be working out, but my enthusiasm sounded flat in my own ears. She rescheduled our shopping trip for tomorrow night. 

With nothing else to do, I resorted to the one activity I’d been deprived of in Forks. I grabbed my compilation of Jane Austen and a ragged old quilt from the cupboard at the top of the stairs and made my way into Charlie’s yard. I laid down on my stomach, the warmth of the sun already blissful. The heat soaked into my eyelids, my cheekbones, my nose, my neck, my arms…

The next thing I was conscious of was the sound of Charlie’s cruiser turning onto the bricks of the driveway. I sat up in surprise, realizing the light was already behind the trees, and I had fallen asleep. I looked around, muddled, with the sudden feeling that I wasn’t alone. More importantly, I realized that I hadn’t started dinner. Charlie was hanging up his gun belt and stepping out of his boots when I came in. 

“Sorry Dad, dinner’s not ready yet -- I fell asleep outside.” I stifled a yawn. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I wanted to catch the score on the game, anyway.”

I watched TV with Charlie after dinner, and did my best to understand how baseball worked. I didn’t like it as much as I liked other sports, but Charlie seemed happy to be doing something together. 

“Dad,” I said during a commercial, “Jessica and Angela are going to look at dresses for the dance tomorrow night in Port Angeles, and they wanted me to help them choose… Do you mind if I go with them?”

“Jessica Stanley? Aren’t you not going to the dance?”

“No, but I’m helping them find dresses. Offer opinions and stuff.”

“Well, okay. It’s a school night though.”

“We’ll leave right after school, so we can get back early. You’ll be okay for dinner right?”

“Bella, I fed myself for seventeen years before you got here,” he chuckled. “Just don’t stay out too late.”

The next day was beautiful and sunny again. I wasn’t sure what I had done to deserve the good luck. The warmer weather meant that I could wear a deep blue V-neck blouse, something that I’d worn in the dead of winter in Phoenix. My excitement about spending time with Jessica was increased by the fact that Lauren had other obligations, as I didn’t know her very well. But the Cullens’ were still absent from the lunchroom, and the seat next to me in Biology left empty. I refused to think that I might be shopping alone in Seattle this weekend. Surely Elizabeth wouldn’t cancel without at least telling me. 

After school, Jessica followed me home in her car so that I could ditch my books and truck. I brushed through my hair quickly when I was inside, feeling my mood lift as I contemplated getting out of Forks. I switched to a purse I rarely used, and ran out to join Jessica. We went to pick up Angela next, and she was already waiting for us. I felt a rush of happiness, exponentially greater than anything else I’d felt in a while, as we actually drove out of the town limits. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This chapter is a slower chapter, so it took a little longer for me to get everything done. Things should be picking up soon though!


	9. Port Angeles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I took the MCAT over the weekend so things were a little crazy. Here's a slightly longer chapter to hopefully make up for it!

Jess drove faster than the Chief, so we made it to Port Angeles by four. The change in environment was invigorating, and I could already feel the serotonin molecules flooding into my brain. We listened to whiny rock songs while Jessica jabbered on about the boys we hung out with. Jessica’s dinner with Mike had apparently gone very well, even without a kiss at the end of the evening. Angela was passively happy to be going to the dance, but not particularly interested in Eric. Jess tried to get her to confess who her type was, but I interrupted with a question about dresses after a bit, to spare her. 

Port Angeles was a beautiful little tourist trap, much more polished and quaint than Forks. But Jessica and Angela knew it well, so they didn’t plan to waste time on the picturesque boardwalk by the way. Jess drove straight to the one big department store in town, which was a few streets in from the bay area’s visitor-friendly face. The dance was billed as semi formal, and we weren’t exactly sure what that meant. I hadn’t gone to a school dance for _years_ , a fact which surprised both Angela and Jessica. 

“Didn’t you ever go with a boyfriend or something?” Jessica asked dubiously as we walked through the front doors of the store.

“Nah, no one ever asked me,” I confessed. “I’m not much for dancing either.”

“Did you want a date for this dance? I could have set you up with someone, you know,” Jessica squinted at me. 

“It’s okay, seriously,” I said, redirecting them to the rack of dresses. The selection wasn’t large, at least not compared to what I was used to in Phoenix, but both of them found a few things to try on. I sat on a low chair just inside the dressing room, by the three-way mirror, and scrolled brainlessly through my phone. 

Jessica was torn between two - one a long, strapless, basic black number, and the other a knee-length cobalt blue with spaghetti straps. I encouraged her to go with the blue; why not play up the eyes? Angela chose a pale pink dress that draped around her tall frame nicely and brought out honey tints in her light brown hair. I complimented them both generously and helped by returning the rejects to their racks. The whole process was much shorter than similar trips I’d taken with Renee. I guess there was something to be said for limited choices. We headed over to shoes and accessories, where I had to talk myself out of buying a pair of sparkly pearl drop earrings that I had no occasion or outfits to wear with. 

We planned to go to dinner at a little Italian restaurant on the boardwalk, but the dress shopping hadn’t taken as long as we’d expected. Jess and Angela were going to take their clothes back to the car and then walk down to the bay. I told them I would meet them at the restaurant in an hour -- I wanted to look for a bookstore. They were both willing to come with me, but I encouraged them to go have fun as I preferred to browse through books alone. 

I had no trouble finding the bookstore, but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. The windows were full of crystals, dream-catchers, and books about spiritual healing. I’d been hoping to buy some novels or new bestsellers. Through the glass I could see a middle aged woman with her gray hair in a ridiculously long braid straight down her back, clad in a dress right out of the sixties. I decided that was one conversation I could skip. Perhaps there were other stores I could browse. 

I meandered through the streets, which were filling up with end-of-the-workday traffic, only periodically checking my phone to make sure I was headed toward downtown. I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should to where I was. I was thinking about Saturday, and whether Elizabeth would actually show up, and slightly afraid of the intensity of my impending disappointment. My mood soured as I marinated in the different possibilities, until I was stomping along in a southerly direction, toward some glass-fronted shops that looked promising. But when I got to them, they were just a repair shop and a vacant space. I still had too much time to go looking for Jess and Angela yet, and I definitely needed to get my mood in hand before I met back up with them. I ran my fingers through my hair a couple of times and took some deep breaths before I continued around the corner. I started to realize, as I crossed another road, that I hadn’t checked my phone in a while, and that I was going the wrong direction. The little foot traffic I had seen was going north, and it looked like the traffic I had seen was going north. I waited for my phone to recalibrate, and followed the little arrow east to get back on track. 

A group of four men turned around the corner I was heading for, dressed too casually to be heading home from the office. As they approached me, I realized they weren’t too many years older than I was. They were joking loudly among themselves, laughing raucously and punching each other’s arms. I scooted as far to the inside of the sidewalk as I could to give them room, walking swiftly, looking past them to the corner. 

“Hey, there!” one of them called as they passed, and he had to be talking to me since no one else was around. I glanced up automatically. Two of them had paused, the other two were slowing. The closest, a heavyset, dark-haired man in his early twenties, seemed to be one who had spoken. He took a half step toward me. 

I jerked back instinctively, remembering Renee’s stranger-danger lectures. Then I quickly looked away and walked faster toward the corner. I could hear them laughing at full volume behind me. 

“I was just tryna say hello, you _bitch_!” The man called after me again, but I kept my head down and rounded the corner with a sigh of relief. His friends were still chortling behind me, no doubt enjoying a joke at their friend’s expense. I found myself on a sidewalk leading past the backs of several somber-colored warehouses, each with large bay doors for unloading trucks, padlocked for the night. I’d wandered far past the part of Port Angeles that I, as a guest, was intended to see. The sky was slowly darkening, the clouds finally returning over the western horizon. The eastern sky was still clear, but graying, shot through with streaks of pink and orange. I’d left my jacket in the car, and a sudden shiver made me cross my arms tightly across my chest. A single van passed me, and then the road was empty. 

The sky suddenly darkened further, and, as I looked over my shoulder to glare at the offending cloud, I realized with a shock that two men were walking quietly twenty feet behind me. They were from the same group I’d passed at the corner, though neither was the one who’d spoken to me. I readjusted my purse, mentally preparing myself to part with the twenty-two dollars that I had in it. But a small, frightened voice in the back of my mind reminded me that I had snubbed their friend, that I had perhaps bruised his ego, and that men could react violently at having their pride challenged. I pulled out my phone, dialing Jessica’s number just in case, but I could see a corner just ahead. The map told me I was close to the main district, and I only had to get off this deserted street. I skipped around a corner with a grateful sigh, and promptly skidded to a stop. 

The street was lined on both sides by blank, doorless, windowless walls. I could see in the distance, two intersections down, streetlamps, cars, and more pedestrians, but they were all too far away. Because lounging against the western building, midway down the street, were the other two men from the group, their faces contorted into grotesque smiles as I froze dead on the sidewalk. I wasn’t being followed. 

I was being herded. 

I paused for only a second to hit the call button on my phone, but I had a sinking feeling that it was a wasted attempt. 

“There you are!” The booming voice of the dark-haired man shattered the intense quiet and made me jump. In the gathering darkness, it seemed like he was looking past me. My phone was still dialing, and I desperately willed Jessica to pick up. 

“Yeah,” a voice called loudly behind me. “We just took a little detour.” 

My steps had to slow now. I was closing the distance between myself and the lounging pair too quickly. The last morsel of hope I’d been clinging to died as I heard Jessica’s peppy _this is Jessica! Call back later._ I had a good loud scream, and I sucked in air, preparing to use it, but my throat was so dry I wasn’t sure how much volume I could manage. 

The thickset man shrugged away from the wall as I warily came to a stop, and walked slowly into the street toward me. 

“Hey sugar, nice to see you again. Must be fate, huh?” He chuckled, and the grating laughter started again behind me. 

I braced myself, feet apart, trying to claw through the panic induced fog to reach the memories of Charlie’s self-defense lessons. Heel of the hand thrust upward. Finger through the eye-socket. The standard knee to the groin, of course. And if nothing else, to bite. That same pessimistic voice in my mind spoke up then, reminding me that I probably wouldn’t have a chance against one of them, and there were four. _Shut up_! I commanded the voice before terror could incapacitate me. I wasn’t going out without taking someone with me. I tried to swallow so I could build up a decent scream. 

Headlights suddenly flew around the corner, the lights blazing so brightly my eyes hurt. I dove into the road -- this car was going to stop, or have to hit me. But it swerved to a stop, and the passenger door opened just a few feet away from me. 

“Get in,” a furious voice commanded. 

It was amazing how instantaneously the choking fear vanished, as soon as I heard her voice. I jumped into the seat, slamming the door shut behind me before flashing both of my middle fingers at the group of men. 

It was dark in the car, no light had come on with the opening of the door, so I could barely see her face in the glow from the dashboard. The tires squealed as she spun around, accelerating too quickly, swerving toward the stunned men on the street. I caught a glimpse of them diving for the sidewalk as we straightened out and sped toward the harbor. 

“Put on your seat belt,” she commanded, and I realized I was clutching the seat with both hands. I quickly obeyed; the snap as the belt connected made me flinch. My nerves were frayed. She took a sharp left, racing forward, blowing through several stop signs without a pause. But I felt utterly safe, and for the moment, totally unconcerned about where we were going. I stared at her face in profound relief, relief that went beyond my sudden deliverance. I studied her features in the limited light, waiting for my breath to return to normal, until it occurred to me that her expression was bordering on murderous. 

“Are you okay?” I asked, surprised at how hoarse my voice sounded. 

“No,” she said curtly, and her tone was livid. 

I sat in silence, watching her face while her eyes stared straight ahead, barely blinking, until the car came to a sudden stop. I glanced out the window, but it was too dark to see anything beside the vague outline of trees crowding the roadside. We weren’t in town anymore. 

“Bella?” she asked, her voice tight, controlled. 

“Yes?” My voice was still rough. I tried to clear my throat quietly. 

“Are you all right?” She still didn’t look at me, but the fury was plain on her face. 

“Yes,” I croaked softly. 

“Distract me, please,” she ordered. 

“I’m sorry, what?”

She exhaled sharply. “Just prattle about something unimportant until I calm down,” she clarified, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. 

“Um.” I wracked my brain for something trivial. “Jessica is going to wear a blue dress to the dance,” I said, looking up at the car ceiling. “I think she’s wearing silver shoes, which I’m not entirely sure about, but she really liked them so I felt bad about saying anything mean. But she does look really good in the dress, so that’s all that matters…” I babbled on.

“Yeah, thank god she chose the blue one. Black dresses are so boring,” Elizabeth said, her eyes still closed. 

I turned my head toward her, my heart rate suddenly sky rocketing. There was no reason for her to know that Jessica was debating between a black and a blue dress. She _couldn’t_ have known, there was no one else at the dress section with us. 

“How… did you know she was choosing between a black and a blue dress?” I asked, a different kind of fear spreading through my chest. 

“Oh,” Elizabeth finally opened her eyes and blinked a few times as if she were startled. “She wore a black dress to the last few dances.” But her face was rigid, and I couldn’t tell if she was being honest. I made a mental note to ask Jessica what color dresses she wore at the past dances. 

“You go to dances?” I asked. 

“Emmett and Rosalie do. They love dressing up,” Elizabeth said. I opened my mouth, my mind spinning as I tried to piece together what she just said. None of it made sense. If her _siblings_ were the ones at the dance, then how did _she_ know what color dress Jessica wore? 

“We should go, it’s getting late.” She started the engine without another word, turning around smoothly and speeding back toward town. We were under the streetlights in no time at all, still going too fast as we weaved through cars with ease. She parallel-parked against the curb in space I thought was much too small, but she slid in effortlessly in one try. I looked out the window to see the lights of La Bella Italia, and Jess and Angela just leaving, pacing anxiously away from us. 

“How did you know where…?” I began, but then I just shook my head. I heard the door open and turned to see her getting out. 

“What are you doing?” I asked. 

“I’m taking you to dinner,” she smiled slightly, but her eyes were hard. “Go tell your friends.”

I hopped out of the car, waving at Jessica and Angela. 

“Jess! Angela!” I called after them. They rushed back to me, the relief pronounced on their faces. 

“Where were you? You called, but then you didn’t pick up or answer to any of my texts,” Jessica said, slapping my arm. “We got worried.” 

“Oops,” I said, digging my phone out of my purse. I’d forgotten to check my phone after my miracle rescue by Elizabeth. “I uh, got lost. And then I ran into Elizabeth.” I gestured behind me, towards her. 

“We’re just glad you’re safe, Bella,” Angela said. “But we already ate while we were waiting for you. I’m sorry, I got hungry.” 

“Oh, that’s okay. I can eat with Elizabeth.”

“How are you getting home?” Jessica asked. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll drive her home,” Elizabeth said, stepping up to stand beside me. I smiled at Jessica, hoping to reassure her. I wanted nothing more to be alone with my perpetual savior. There were so many questions that I couldn’t bombard him with till we were by ourselves. 

“Okay.” Angela was quicker than Jessica. “See you tomorrow, Bella… Elizabeth.” She grabbed Jessica’s hand and pulled her toward the car, which I could see a little ways away. As they got in, Jess turned and waved, her face eager with curiosity. I waved back, waiting for them to drive away before I turned to face her. 

“Honestly, I’m not hungry,” I insisted. 

“Humor me.” She walked to the door of the restaurant and held it open with a flourish of her arm. I shrugged and walked past her into the restaurant with a resigned sigh. The host was male, and I understood the look in his eyes as he assessed Elizabeth. 

“A table for two?” He asked. 

“Somewhere private, please,” Elizabeth said. 

“Sure,” he said, leading us around a partition to a small ring of booths -- all of them empty. “How’s this?”

“Perfect.” Elizabeth flashed a gleaming smile, and the waiter looked momentarily dazed. 

“Um,” he shook his head, blinking. “Your server will be right out.” 

“You really shouldn’t do that to people,” I said, resting my chin against my hand. “It’s hardly fair.”

“Do what?”

“Dazzle them like that -- he’s probably in love with you by now.”

She seemed confused. 

“Oh, come on,” I said dubiously. “You have to know the effect you have on people.” 

She tilted her head to one side, her eyes contemplative. “I dazzle people?”

“You haven’t noticed? Do you think everyone gets their way so easily?”

“Do I dazzle you?”

“Frequently,” I admitted. Elizabeth smiled, the first smile that reached her eyes all evening. And then our server arrived, his face expectant. Someone had definitely dished behind the scenes, and the new boy didn’t look disappointed. He swept his hand through his hair and smiled with unnecessary warmth. 

“Hey, my name’s Alex, and I’ll be your server tonight. What can I get you to drink?” I didn’t miss that he was speaking only to Elizabeth, who glanced at me. 

“A coke, please,” I said

“Two cokes then,” Elizabeth nodded at the waiter. 

“I’ll be right back with that,” he assured her with another unnecessary smile. But she didn’t see it. She was watching me. 

“How are you feeling?” 

“Surprisingly fine,” I shrugged. 

“No dizziness or coldness?”

“Should I?”

“Well, I’m actually waiting for you to go into shock.” Her face lit up with another smile.

“I don’t think that will happen,” I said after a moment. 

“Well, just the same, I’ll feel better when you have some sugar and food in you.”

Right on cue, the waiter appeared with our drinks and a basket of breadsticks. 

“Are you ready to order?” he asked Elizabeth. 

“Bella?” she asked. 

“Um… I’ll have the mushroom ravioli,” I said, picking the first thing on the menu. 

“And you?” The waiter turned back to Elizabeth. 

“Nothing for me,” she said. Of course not. 

The waiter left, dissatisfied by the lack of attention from Elizabeth. 

I took a long sip of my soda, surprised by how thirsty I was. I realized I had finished the whole thing when she pushed her glass toward me. 

“Thanks,” I muttered, still thirsty. The cold from the icy soda was radiating through my chest, and I shivered. 

“Are you cold?” 

“It’s just the Coke,” I explained, shivering again. 

“Don’t you have a jacket?” Her voice was disapproving. 

“Oh, I left it in Jessica’s car,” I said sheepishly. She was already shrugging out of her jacket. I suddenly realized that I had never once noticed what she was wearing -- not just tonight, but ever. I just couldn’t seem to look away from her face. I focused now. She was removing a light beige leather jacket now; underneath she wore an ivory turtleneck sweater. It fit her snugly, emphasizing her curves. 

She handed me the jacket, interrupting my ogling. 

“Thanks,” I said again, sliding my arms into her jacket. It was cold -- the way my jacket felt when I first picked it up in the morning, hanging in the drafty hallway. I shivered again. It smelled amazing. I inhaled, trying to identify the delicious scent. It didn’t smell like cologne. The sleeves were a touch long; I shoved them back so I could free my hands. 

She pushed the bread basket toward me.

“Really, I’m fine,” I protested. 

“You shouldn’t be. At least a normal person wouldn’t be. You don’t even look shaken.” She seemed unsettled. She stared into my eyes, and I saw how light hers were, lighter than I’d ever seen them, an iridescent gold. 

“I feel very safe with you,” I confessed, mesmerized into telling the truth again. 

She furrowed her brows, frowning. 

“How unexpected,” she muttered. I picked up a breadstick and began nibbling on the end, measuring her expression. I wondered when it would be okay to start questioning her. 

“Usually you’re in a better mood when your eyes are so light, I commented, trying to distract her from whatever thought had left him frowning and somber. 

She stared at me, stunned. “What?”

“You’re always crabbier when your eyes are black -- I expect it then,” I went on. “I have a theory about that.”

Her eyes narrowed. “More theories?”

“Mm-hm.” I chewed on a small bite of the bread, trying to look indifferent. 

“I hope you were more creative this time… or are you still stealing from comic books?” Her faint smile was mocking, her eyes were still tight. 

“Well, no, I didn’t get it from a comic book, but I didn’t come up with it on my own, either,” I confessed. 

“And?” she prompted. 

But then the waiter strode around the partition with my food. I realized we’d been unconsciously leaning toward each other across the table, because we both straightened up as he approached. 

“Did you change your mind? Is there anything I can get you?” he asked Elizabeth. 

“No, thank you, but some more soda would be nice.” She gestured to the empty cups in front of me. 

“Sure.” He removed the empty glasses and walked away. 

“You were saying?” she asked. 

“I’ll tell you about it in the car. If…” I paused. 

“There are conditions?”

“I do have a few questions, of course. 

“Of course.”

The waiter was back with two more Cokes. He sat them down without a word this time, and left again. I took a sip. 

“Well, go ahead,” she said, leaning back in her seat. I started with the most undemanding. Or so I thought. 

“Why are you in Port Angeles?”

She looked down, folding her long fingers together slowly on the table. Her eyes flickered up at me from under her lashes, the hint of a smirk on her face.

“Next.”

“But that’s the easiest one,” I objected. 

“ _Next_ ,” she repeated.

I looked down, frustrated, and speared a ravioli with my fork. It was better than I expected. Mushrooms weren’t my favorite. I swallowed and took another sip of Coke before I looked up.

“Okay, then.” I glared at her, and continued slowly. “Let’s say, hypothetically of course, that… someone… could read minds, you know -- with a few exceptions.”

“Just one exception,” she corrected, “hypothetically.”

“All right, with one exception, then.” I was thrilled that she was playing along, but I tried to seem casual. 

“How does that work? What are the limitations? How would someone… find someone else at exactly the right time?” I wondered if my convoluted questions even made sense. 

“Hypothetically?” she asked. 

“Sure.”

“Well, if… that someone…”

“Let’s call him ‘Joe’,” I suggested. 

She smiled wryly. “Joe, then. If Joe had been paying attention, the timing wouldn’t have needed to be quite so exact.” She shook her head, rolling her eyes. “You do have a penchant for getting in trouble.”

“We were speaking of a hypothetical case,” I reminded her frostily. She laughed at me, her eyes warm. 

“Yes, we were,” she agreed. “Shall we call you ‘Jane’?”

“How did you know?” I asked as I leaned in, drawn by the force of my curiosity. 

She seemed to be wavering, torn by some internal dilemma. Her eyes locked with mine, and I guessed she was making the decision right then whether or not to simply tell me the truth. 

“You can trust me, you know,” I murmured. I reached forward, without thinking, to touch her folded hands, but she slid them away minutely, and I pulled my hand back. 

“You’re much more observant than I gave you credit for. That might be a problem.” She moved her hands under the table, annoyingly out of reach. But she leaned toward me. 

“I followed you to Port Angeles,” she admitted, speaking in a rush. “I’ve never really tried to keep a specific person alive before, and it’s harder than I would have believed. You get into a shocking number of mishaps.” She paused. I wondered if it should bother me that she was following me; but it felt wrong to be bothered when she’d saved me from such tricky situations. 

“You eat, I’ll talk,” she bargained. 

I quickly scooped up another ravioli and popped it in my mouth. 

“Usually I can find someone very easily, once I’ve heard their mind before.” She looked at me anxiously, and I realized I had frozen. I made myself swallow, then stabbed another ravioli and tossed it in. 

“At first I was just keeping tabs on Jessica, and I didn’t intend to do much more than make sure you arrived home safely. But then you guys parted ways, so I followed you through the thoughts of people on the street…” She was lost in thought, starting past me, seeing things I couldn’t imagine. 

“The sun was finally setting by the time I was deciding whether to get out and follow you on foot. And then--” She stopped, clenching her teeth together in sudden fury. She took a gasping breath to calm herself. 

“Then what?” I whispered. 

“I heard what they were thinking,” she growled, her upper lip curling slightly back over her teeth. “I saw your face in his mind.” She suddenly leaned forward, one elbow appearing on the table, her hand covering her eyes. The movement was so swift it startled me. 

“My… My sister had a very terrible experience with men. It was very hard -- you can’t imagine how hard -- for me to simply take you away, and leave them… alive.” Her voice was muffled by her arm. “I was afraid if I let you leave with Jessica that I would go looking for them,” she admitted in a whisper. My hands were folded in my lap, and I was leaning weakly against the back of the seat. Finally, she looked up, her eyes seeking mine, full of her own questions. 

“Are you ready to go home?” she asked. 

“I’m ready,” I said, overly grateful that we had the hour-long ride home together. She paid the bill, crumpling the receipt with the waiter’s number scrawled over it, and led me towards her car. She opened the passenger door, holding it for me as I stepped in, shutting it softly behind me. I watched her walk around the front of the car, amazed, yet again, by how graceful she was. I had a feeling Elizabeth wasn’t the kind of person anyone got used to. 

She started the engine and turned the heater on high. It had gotten very cold, and I guessed the good weather was at an end. It was warm in her jacket though, and the scent of it was making me a little unsteady. Elizabeth pulled out through the traffic, apparently without a glance, flipping around to head toward the freeway. 

“Now,” she said, her voice commanding, “it’s your turn.”


	10. Theory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed the chapter.

“Can I ask just one more?” I pleaded as Elizabeth accelerated much too quickly down the quiet street. She didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the road. 

“One,” she sighed. Her lips pressed together into a cautious line. 

“Well… you said you knew I hadn’t gone into the bookstore, and that I had gone south. I was just wondering how you knew that.” 

She looked away, deliberating. 

“I thought we were past all the evasiveness,” I mumbled. She smiled. 

“Fine, if you really want to know then. I  _ did _ go into the bookstore, but I didn’t pick up on your scent. So that’s how I know you weren’t there.”

“You can  _ smell _ me?” I asked, indignant as I filed the knowledge away for future study. 

“I can read minds, and you’re more concerned by the fact that I have better senses than most people?” Elizabeth chuckled. 

That was fair. But I suppose there was a predatory undertone to the ability to deduce where people had gone based simply on their scent. Everything about her, really, felt like a creature designed to hunt people down. The ability to find someone by rifling through other people’s minds, the preternatural physical abilities, the charm to disarm any suspicions… 

I blinked a few times to refocus on the conversation. 

“How does it work -- the mind-reading thing? Can you read anybody’s mind, anywhere? How do you do it? Can the rest of your family…?” I trailed off, feeling sheepish at the barrage of questions tumbling out of my mouth. 

“No, it’s just me. And I can’t hear anyone, anywhere. I have to be fairly close. No more than a few miles, thankfully.” She paused thoughtfully. 

“Thankfully?” 

“It’s a little like being in a huge hall filled with people, everyone talking at once. It’s all just a hum of noise in the background, until I focus on one voice, and then what they’re thinking is clear. I try to tune most of it out.”

“And you can’t hear mine?” 

She shook her head. “I don’t know why. But enough about me. I’m still waiting for your latest theory.” 

I pursed my lips together. She looked at me, her eyes unexpectedly gentle. 

“Is it that bad? I won’t laugh.”

“I’m more afraid that you’ll be angry with me,” I said, inspecting my fingers. “I don’t really know how to start, either.”

“At the beginning. You said you didn’t come up with this on your own. What got you started -- a book? A movie?” she probed. 

“No -- it was Saturday, at the beach.” I glanced at her face. She looked puzzled. 

“I ran into an old family friend,” I continued. “Jacob Black? His dad and Charlie have been friends since I was a baby.”

I could see the gears slowly turning in her head, but she still looked confused. 

“His dad is one of the Quileute elders,” I supplied, unhelpfully. Her expression froze in place. “He told me some scary stories, based on some old legends…”

“Go on,” Elizabeth said. Her voice was artificially calm. 

“About vampires.” I realized I was whispering. I couldn’t look at her face now. But I saw her knuckles tighten convulsively on the wheel. 

“And you immediately thought of me?” Still calm. 

“No. He… mentioned your family.”

She was silent, staring pensively at the road. I was worried suddenly, worried about protecting Jacob. 

“It’s not his fault. He said he wasn’t supposed to tell you. I just forced it out of him. I did some research on the Internet after. And anyways…” I trailed off as I tilted my head up to look at the car ceiling. 

“Anyways?”

“I decided it didn’t matter,” I said hoarsely. “What you were.” 

“It doesn’t  _ matter _ ?” Elizabeth’s voice finally broke through her carefully composed mask. She sounded incredulous, although there might have been a trace of anger swirled in. “You don’t care if I’m not human?” 

“I mean, I care, just not in a way that matters for our relationship,” I shrugged. “I’m curious about what you are. How being not human works, I guess,” I said, making quotation gestures around the words  _ not human _ . 

She was suddenly resigned. “What are you curious about?”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” she answered promptly. 

“For how long?” 

The corners of her lips twitched as she stared at the road. “A while,” she admitted at last. 

“Okay.” I smiled, pleased that she was still being honest with me. “Are any of the other myths true? Does sunlight burn? That can’t be right, I see you in school all the time.” 

“No, those aren’t true,” she laughed. 

“Do you sleep in coffins?” I asked, teasingly, hoping to get another laugh from her. 

She shook her head, her smile fading into a more somber expression. “I can’t sleep.”

It took me a moment to absorb that. “At all?”

“Never,” she said, her voice wistful. I wanted to make a joke about how  _ productive she must be _ , but she turned her golden eyes towards me and knocked my train of thought out of my mind. 

“You haven’t asked me the most important question.”

“Hm?”

“You aren’t concerned about my diet?”

I hesitated. “Jacob said something about that, actually. He said your family wasn’t supposed to be dangerous because you only hunted animals. But the Quileutes didn’t want you on their land, just in case.”

“The Quileutes have a long memory,” she whispered after a moment. I took it as a confirmation. “Don’t let that make you complacent though,” she warned. “We’re still dangerous.”

“But  _ why _ ? Why animals, not people?”

“I guess I just don’t find drinking human blood ethical. The same reason some people are vegetarians, which is what we call ourselves. A joke, if you will. It doesn’t completely satiate the thirst.”

“You’re not hungry now, though.” I said confidently. 

“Why do you think that?”

“The eyes, I told you before. Also, you’re a lot crabbier when you’re hungry.” 

Elizabeth laughed again, and my heart quivered. “You are observant. I like that about you.” She reached out a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, her hand just barely avoiding my cheek. The thumping in my chest magnified. 

“But really, I shouldn’t be doing this. Being alone in a car with you, I mean. Please understand, Bella. I’m dangerous.”

I opened my mouth, but any words I had in me died before they could escape. It felt like someone was stomping over my heart, only there was a delirious sort of sweetness mixed along into the pain. I knew she was right, of course. But I didn’t want whatever our relationship was to end. 

The darkness slipped by us in silence. 

“Tell me something,” she asked after another minute, and I could hear her shift to a lighter tone. “What were you thinking tonight, just before I came around the corner? I couldn’t understand your expression -- you didn’t look that scared, you looked like you were concentrating very hard on something.”

“Oh, I was trying to remember the self-defense my dad taught me.”

“You were going to fight them? Didn’t you think about running?”

“I guess my body chose  _ fight _ instead of flight,” I shrugged. “I’m not very fast either.”

She shook her head. “I have my work cut out for me if I’m going to keep you alive.”

I sighed. We were slowing, passing into the boundaries of Forks. 

“Will I see you tomorrow?” I asked. 

“Yes -- I have a paper due, too. I’ll save you a seat at lunch?”

It was silly how happy that tiny, tiny question made me. I nodded, trying my best to wrestle the giant smile off my face. We were in front of Charlie’s house now. The lights were on, my truck in its place, everything utterly normal. It was like waking from a dream. She stopped the car, and I reluctantly shrugged out of her jacket. 

“You can keep it -- you don’t have a jacket for tomorrow,” she reminded me. 

“No, I don’t want Charlie to think I went on a shopping spree,” I said, handing it back to her as I stepped out of the car. I hesitated after she took it, my hand on the door handle, trying to prolong the moment. 

“Bella?” she asked, her voice serious. 

“Yes?” 

“Don’t go into the woods alone.” 

I stared at her in blank confusion. “Why?”

“I’m not always the most dangerous thing out there. Let’s leave it at that.” Her eyes were tight as she stared past me. The sudden bleakness in her voice was chilling, but at the very least, this was a promise I could keep. 

“Whatever you say,” I said, closing the car door. 

“Wait, one last thing,” Elizabeth said, and I yanked the door back open in response. “Sleep well,” she said, her face beaming. Her eyes were focused entirely on me for the first time since we got in the car, and I felt my brain scramble, under the force of her charm.  _ It’s not fair.  _

“You too,” I mumbled, before I realized she couldn’t sleep. “Or like, whatever you do at night. Uh, I’ll see you tomorrow!” Flustered, I slammed the door harder than I intended. I thought I heard her chuckle, but the sound was too quiet to be certain. She waited until I had stumbled to the front door, and then I heard the engine quietly rev. As I slipped the keys into the lock, I realized it was very cold. 

“Bella?” It was Charlie, from the living room. 

“Yeah, it’s me.” I walked in to see him. He was watching a baseball game. 

“You’re home early. It’s not even eight yet. Did you girls have fun?”

“Yes. I need to sit though, I’ve done a lot of walking.”

“Well, go take a break,” he said, looking concerned. I wondered what my face looked like. I made my way upstairs and promptly collapsed into my bed. My phone buzzed suddenly, startling me. 

_ Your jacket is in my car _ . 

It was Jess. 

_ Can you bring it tomorrow?  _ I replied. 

_ Sure. What happened though? _

_ I’ll tell you tomorrow in trig.  _

I shoved my phone under the pillow, not bothering to wait for her reply. It took all my energy to pull myself away from my bed and into the shower. It wasn’t until then -- standing under the scorching water, my skin burning -- that I realized that I was still shivering. I stood there for several minutes until my rigid muscles finally loosened. I stumbled out when the hot water finally began to run out, and then stumbled back into the safety of my bed, where I wrapped myself securely in my quilt. My mind swirled dizzily, full of thoughts from the day, some which I fought to repress. Nothing seemed clear at first, but as I fell gradually closer to unconsciousness, a few certainties became evident. Three things were absolutely clear. 

First, Elizabeth was a vampire. 

Second, there was a part of her -- and I didn’t know how potent that part might be -- that thirsted for my blood. 

And third, I was undeniably, irredeemably enraptured by her. 


	11. Complications

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! School has been busy.

Jessica was waiting under the shelter of the cafeteria’s roof’s overhang, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she scanned the crowd. Over her arm, bless her, was my jacket. 

“Hey, Jess,” I said when I was a few feet away. “Thanks for remembering.”

“Yeah, no problem!” Her voice was cheerful as she handed me the jacket, but it dropped in volume as she leaned in. “So I’ll see you in trig?” 

“Yeah, I’ll fill you in then,” I said, not that I had the vaguest hint of what I was going to tell her. 

I walked into my first class, flushed from thinking up all the questions Jessica could possibly ask me. I was working myself into an unreasonably nervous mood, and I still had no idea what Elizabeth and I were. 

“Morning, Bella,” Mike said as I slammed my bag down in my usual seat. I looked up to see an odd, almost resigned look on his face. “How was Port Angeles?”

“It was…” There was no honest way to sum it up. “Great,” I finished lamely. “Jessica got a really cute dress.”

“Did she say anything about Monday night?” he asked, his eyes brightening. I felt my mood lift, instantly, at the prospect of my ship finally sailing. 

“She said she had a really good time,” I assured him. 

“She did?”

“Most definitely,” I said, nodding my head emphatically. Mr. Mason called the class to order then, asking us to turn in our papers. English and then Government passed in a blur, while I worried about how to explain things to Jessica. When I walked into Trig, Jessica was sitting in the back row, nearly bouncing off her seat in agitation. I went to sit by her, convincing myself it would be better to get it over with as soon as possible. 

“So what happened?” she whispered, as if she were a part of a great conspiracy. “Last night, after I left.”

“She bought me dinner, and then she drove me home,” I said, which _was_ true. 

“Did you tell her to meet you there?” 

“No -- I was surprised to see her there.” 

Jessica’s lips puckered in disappointment at the transparent honesty in my voice. 

“Are you meeting up again? Are you guys friends now?”

 _Friends_. Were we? I thought back to the car ride and my rapid heartbeat when Elizabeth fixed my hair. 

“I guess. She’s offered to drive me to Seattle Saturday because she thinks the truck isn’t up to it -- does that count?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Wow, Elizabeth Cullen? Don’t dump us for her, I’ll be sad.”

“I wouldn’t do that!” I exclaimed, offended that Jess thought I would do such a thing. 

“Oh, don’t be so serious,” Jessica elbowed me. “I’m just curious why she decided to befriend you all of a sudden.” 

I didn’t know the answer either. The conversation died after that, and I turned my attention to the lecture. Jessica didn’t get a chance to start on the subject again during class, and as soon as the bell rang, I took evasive action. 

“In English, Mike asked me if you said anything about Monday night,” I informed her, more than a little gleeful to turn the tables on her. 

“You’re kidding! What did you say?” she gasped, completely sidetracked. 

“I told him you said you had a lot of fun -- he looked pleased.” We spent the rest of the walk dissecting what happened and Mike’s facial expressions. It was pleasant to have something so mundane, so _innocent_ , to think about after the discoveries from last night. And then the bell rang for lunch. The two of us strolled out of the classroom, and I wondered if Elizabeth would disappear inconveniently again. But outside the door of our classroom, leaning against the wall - looking more like a celebrity than anyone had a right to - Elizabeth was waiting for me. Jessica smiled awkwardly and waved goodbye. 

“She’s confused, you know,” Elizabeth said. She’d been listening to Jessica’s thoughts, clearly. 

“About?” I fell into step beside her. 

“About why you’re suddenly hanging out with me so much. I think she’s jealous,” Elizabeth chuckled. _Oh, Jess_ , I thought, feeling guilty instantly. I’d have to make it up to her after this. Walking with Elizabeth through the crowded lunchtime rush was a lot like my first day here; everyone stared. 

“You could tell her,” Elizabeth whispered. “That we’re not really friends.” 

“Then what are we?” I responded instinctively, and regretted it after. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to consider that yet. 

“That’s up to you. But I don’t think _friends_ is the right word,” Elizabeth said. She was grinning now, in the way that made it impossible to think. Her eyes were liquid topaz.

“You’re-You’re doing it again. Dazzling me, I mean,” I muttered. She shrugged, an air of innocence around her, and proceeded to buy nothing but a single can of Sprite from the lunch line. I shook my head and paid for my sandwich and apple. She led the way to the same place we’d sat that one time before. From the other end of the long table, a group of senior boys gazed at us - or just _her_ \- in amazement as we sat across from each other. Elizabeth seemed oblivious.

“I’m curious,” I said as I held up my apple, turning it around in my hands, “what would you do if someone dared you to eat food?”

“You’re always curious,” Elizabeth rolled her eyes. She picked up the apple and spun it in her hands once, then popped it into her mouth, chewed quickly, and swallowed. I watched, eyes wide. 

“If someone dared you to eat dirt, you could, couldn’t you?” she asked teasingly. 

“I have, once, actually,” I wrinkled my nose. “It wasn’t terrible.”

She laughed. “I suppose I’m not surprised.” There was a lull in the conversation, and she held up the apple as if she were inspecting it. “But back to our conversation from earlier. What _are_ we, Bella?”

“Are we not friends?” I asked hesitantly. 

“What makes you think I see you as a friend?” Elizabeth scowled. 

“Well, sometimes… It’s hard to figure out what you’re thinking. You disappear without saying anything, which isn’t what I’d expect of my friends,” I said, choosing to be honest. “But I feel a lot better after yesterday.” 

“Mm. I can’t fault you for that, I suppose,” she sighed. “On a different note -- are you resolved on going to Seattle this weekend, or do you mind if we do something different?”

As long as the _we_ part was in, I didn’t care about much else.

“I’m open to alternatives,” I allowed. “But I need to drive. Or Charlie will get suspicious about why I left the car at home.”

“Are you going to tell your father that you’re going on a trip with me?” Elizabeth asked. 

“With Charlie, less is always more.” I was definite about that. 

She frowned slightly, and propelled herself onto her feet in one lithe motion. 

“You really should. Give me a reason to bring you back, you know?” She winked as she said this, and my ears burned with an uncomfortable intensity. “Anyways, let’s go.”

I glanced around, startled to see that people were starting to file out of the cafeteria. The conversation felt short, but time and place were always such a muddled blur when I was with Elizabeth that I tended to lose track of both. I shifted my bag over my shoulder and followed her out of the cafeteria.

Everyone watched us as we walked to our lab table. I noticed that she no longer angled the chair to sit as far from me as the desk allowed. Instead, she sat quite close beside me, our arms almost touching. Mr. Banner backed into the room then, pulling a tall metal frame on wheels that held a heavy-looking, outdated TV. A movie day -- the lift in the class atmosphere was almost tangible. Mr. Banner shoved a disc into the reluctant CD player and walked to the wall to turn off the light.

And then, as the room went black, I was suddenly hyper aware that Elizabeth was sitting less than an inch from me. I was stunned by the unexpected electricity that flowed through me, amazed that it was possible to be more aware of her than I already was. I was seized by an impulse to reach over and touch her, to slip my hand into hers. I crossed my arms tightly across my chest, my hands balling into fists. This was it. I was losing my mind.

The opening credits began, lighting the room a token amount. My eyes, of their own accord, flickered to her. Her posture was identical to mine, fists clenched under her arms, her eyes peering sideways at me. Her eyelashes were dark against her alabaster skin as she blinked slowly, her eyes somehow managing to smolder even in the dark. All at once, I felt as if my breathing no longer belonged to me. I tore my eyes away and gasped slightly for air. It was absolutely ridiculous that I felt dizzy.

The hour seemed very long. I could barely concentrate on the movie -- something about photosynthesis, and the diversity of plants. I tried unsuccessfully to relax, but the electric current that pulsated between us never slackened. Occasionally, I allowed myself a quick glance at her, but she was always perfectly still. The overpowering craving to touch her also refused to fade, and I crushed my fists safely against my ribs until my fingers were aching from the effort. I breathed a sigh of relief when Mr. Banner flicked the light back on at the end of class, and stretched my arms out in front of me, flexing my stiff fingers. Elizabeth chuckled beside me.

“Well, that was interesting,” she said, sounding far more nonchalant than her tense posture showed.

“Ummm,” was all I was able to respond. 

“Shall we?” she asked, rising fluidly. I almost groaned. _Time for gym._ I stood with care, worried my balance might have been affected by the strange new intensity between us. She walked me to my next class in silence and paused at the door; I turned to say goodbye. Her expression startled me -- she was smiling, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes, which looked rather melancholy. The ache to touch her flared again. My goodbye caught in my throat. 

She raised her hand, hesitant, conflict raging in her eyes, and then swiftly brushed the length of my cheekbone with her fingertip. Her skin was icy as ever, but the trail her fingers left on my skin was alarmingly warm -- like I’d been burned, but I didn’t feel the pain of it yet.

She turned without a word and strode quickly away from me. I walked into the gym, lightheaded and wobbly. Reality didn’t set in for me until I was handed a racket. I could see a few of the students eyeing me furtively. Coach Clapp ordered us to pair up into teams. Mercifully, some vestiges of Mike’s chivalry still survived; he came to stand beside me. 

“Do you want to be a team?”

“Thanks, Mike -- you don’t have to do this, you know.” I grimaced apologetically.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep out of your way,” Mike grinned. It was easy to see why Jessica liked him. 

Despite being handicapped by me, Mike was pretty good; he won three games out of four single handedly. He gave me an unearned high five when the coach finally blew the whistle ending class.

“So,” he said as we walked off the court. 

“So?”

“Jess told me you and Elizabeth Cullen are best friends now,” he said. It was less of a question and a statement. The harshness of his tone surprised me. 

“We’re friends, yeah. Why?” I replied, praying that Jessica hadn’t complained to Mike.

“It’s nothing. I’m just worried she won’t like us,” Mike shrugged.

“She’s… a lot nicer than you’d expect. Really. I’ll ask if she’d like to hang out sometime.” 

Mike looked unconvinced, and the truth was that I didn’t know if Elizabeth would enjoy the company of Mike and Jessica either. They were such perfect embodiments of adolescence that it felt strange to imagine Elizabeth with them. Mike and I parted ways awkwardly, and I found myself walking towards the parking lot. Elizabeth was already waiting, leaning casually against the side of the gym. 

“Hello,” she smiled. “How was Gym?” 

I paused. “Fine,” I said. I didn’t want to tell her about what Mike said, but her eyes were already shifting their focus, looking over my shoulder towards Mike’s retreating figure. 

“Really?” 

“Were you _listening_?” I asked, the realization dawning. 

“It’s hard not to, when someone is constantly repeating thoughts about you,” Elizabeth said, straightening. “Would you prefer it if I sat with you at lunch one day?”

“No.” My answer was immediate. And it wasn’t really because I didn’t think she could get along with Mike and Jessica and their crew -- I just didn’t want to share my time with her. 

“Well then, I don’t think we have much of a problem. Can I pick you up tomorrow morning?” 

A red convertible pulled up beside us - Rosalie was sitting in the driver’s seat - and I watched Elizabeth open the door. I wondered if Rosalie knew about us, if she approved, or if she even cared at all. 

“Yes, that’s fine,” I nodded after a moment. Elizabeth smiled again, and slid into the seat beside Rosalie. Together, the two of them were so overwhelmingly beautiful that I felt momentarily self-conscious about my appearance in comparison. Rosalie revved the engine, and then the pair were gone, the car speeding out of the parking lot before I could even collect my thoughts. I drove myself home slowly, trying my best to avoid looking at myself in the mirror.

The next morning, I woke up with an exhaustion that seeped through to my bones. I had dreamed of Elizabeth again, but it was no more than vague, blurry glimpses and an ominous sensation that haunted me until I turned the lights on. I ate breakfast silently and chugged what felt like half a pot of coffee in the hopes of waking myself up. When I heard Charlie’s cruiser pull away, I could only wait a few seconds before I had to peek out of my window. Elizabeth’s silver car was already there, waiting in Charlie’s spot on the driveway. I bounded down the stairs and out the front door. She waved at me as I jogged towards the car.

“Good morning.” Her voice was silky. “How are you?”

“Good,” I replied. My mood was brightening now that I was near her. Her gaze lingered on my face, and she frowned. 

“You look tired.”

“I didn’t sleep well,” I confessed, automatically swinging my hair around my shoulder to provide some measure of cover.

“Neither could I,” she teased as she started the engine. I stuck my tongue out at her, and the two of us broke out into laughter. 

“So, it’s my turn for some questions,” Elizabeth drummed her fingers lightly across the wheel.

“What do you even want to know?” I asked, peering out the window. 

“What’s your favorite color?” 

I spun my head around to look at her. Elizabeth’s face was perfectly serious, but the banality of the question amused me.

“Probably… brown?” 

She rolled her eyes, dropping her serious expression. “Brown?” she asked skeptically. 

“Sure. Brown is warm. Everything that’s supposed to be brown - tree trunks, rocks, soil - is all covered up by greenery here,” I said. She considered this for a moment. 

“You’re right,” she decided, serious again. “Brown is warm.”

The questions continued for the rest of the ride, and then again when we saw each other at lunch. They were all light and conversational, the type of small talk questions you ask someone when first meeting them. Movies I’d liked and hated, the few places I’d been and the many places I wanted to go, and books -- endlessly books. It struck me that the two of us had skipped all the casual conversation and launched straight into confessing our secrets. Perhaps this was her way of making up for that. 

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d talked so much. She seemed absorbed by my answers, even the ones that were completely trivial. We continued all the way to Biology, until Mr. Banner entered the room, dragging the TV behind him again. Elizabeth and I exchanged glances - clearly we both remembered what happened yesterday - and she slid her chair slightly farther away from mine with an apologetic smile. 

It didn’t help. 

As soon as the room was dark, there was the same electric spark, the same restless craving to stretch my hand across the short space and touch her. I leaned forward on the table, resting my chin on my folded arms, my hidden fingers gripping the table’s edge as I fought to ignore the irrational longing that unsettled me. I sincerely tried to watch the movie, but it was more stuff about plants, and by the end of the hour I barely remembered anything. Elizabeth walked me to gym class in silence, like yesterday. And, also like yesterday, she touched my face wordlessly - this time with the back of her cool hand, pushing my hair behind my ear - before she turned and walked away. 

Mike and I were back to our usual chatty selves, but it felt as if we were both skirting around the topic of Elizabeth. Somewhere, in a corner of my mind, I felt bad about that. But eventually class ended, and I was jogging again towards Elizabeth’s car in the parking lot, where she was already sitting. Her questions were different now, not as easily answered. She wanted to know what I missed about home. 

I tried to describe the high, keening sound of the cicadas in July, the feathery barrenness of the trees, and the very size of the sky -- but it was difficult to justify a beauty that depended on the exposed shape of the land. I found myself using my hands as I tried to describe it to her. We sat in the car long after she pulled into the parking lot, chatting, until the sun began to dim. 

“Well, I’d love to ask more, but your father will be home soon,” Elizabeth said, her eyes narrowing.

I realized with a start that it was twilight, and that Charlie would be driving home soon. 

“You should go. Unless you want Charlie to catch us together,” she said.

“I don’t think it’ll be a problem if he sees us,” I said, opening the door reluctantly. 

“Oh, that might not be the problem,” Elizabeth muttered under her breath. 

“What is it?” I was surprised to see that her fingers were clenched around the wheel. 

Her eyes were fixed on something in the distance. “Another complication,” she hissed through her teeth. She flung the door open in one swift movement, then moved, almost cringed, swiftly away from me. The flash of headlights through the rain caught my attention as a dark car pulled up to the curb just a few feet away, facing us. 

“Charlie’s around the corner,” she warned, staring through the haze at the other vehicle. I hopped out at once, despite my confusion and curiosity. I tried to make out the shapes in the front seat of the other car, but it was too dark. I could see Elizabeth illuminated in the glare of the new car’s headlights; she was still staring ahead, her gaze locked on something or someone I couldn’t see. Her expression was a strange mix of frustration and defiance. Then she revved the engine, and the tires squealed against the pavement. The car was out of sight in seconds. 

“Hey, Bella,” called a familiar, husky voice from the driver’s side of the little black car. 

“Jacob?” I asked, squinting. Just then, Charlie’s cruiser swung around the corner, his lights shining on the occupants of the car in front of me.

Jacob was already climbing out, his wide grin visible even through the darkness. In the passenger seat was a much older man, a heavyset man with a memorable face - a face that overflowed, the cheeks resting against his shoulders, with creases running through the russet skin like an old leather jacket. And the surprisingly familiar eyes, black eyes that seemed all at once too young and too ancient for the broad face they were set in. Billy Black. He was staring at me, scrutinizing my face, so I smiled tentatively at him. His eyes were wide, as if in shock or fear, his nostrils flared. My smile faded. 

Another complication, Elizabeth had said. Bill still stared at me with intense, anxious eyes. I groaned internally. Had Billy recognized Elizabeth so easily? Could he really believe the impossible legends his son had scoffed at? 

The answer was clear in Billy’s eyes. Yes. Yes, he could.


	12. Balancing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's up! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed the chapter.

“Billy!” Charlie called as soon as he got out of the car. I turned toward the house, beckoning to Jacob as I ducked under the porch. I heard Charlie greeting them loudly behind me. 

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t see you behind the wheel, Jake,” he said disapprovingly. 

“We get permits early on the rez,” Jacob said while I unlocked the door and flicked on the porch light. 

“Sure you do,” Charlie laughed. 

“I have to get around somehow.” I recognized Billy’s resonant voice easily, despite the years. The sound of it made me feel suddenly younger, as if I were transported to my childhood years again. 

I went inside, leaving the door open behind me and turning on the lights before I hung up my jacket. Then I stood in the doorway, pacing anxiously as Charlie and Jacob helped Billy out of the car and into his wheelchair. 

“This is a surprise,” Charlie was saying. 

“It’s been too long,” Billy answered. “I hope it’s not a bad time.” His dark eyes flashed up to me again, and I fought to keep my expression neutral. 

“No, it’s great. I hope you can stay for the game,” Charlie said. 

Jacob grinned. “I think that’s the plan -- our TV broke last week. And I wanted to say hi to Bella again.” 

I flashed two thumbs up at him. Jacob had a far less imposing presence than his father, and I was glad that he was here. His enthusiasm was hard to resist. 

“So, how are things?” Jacob asked, as I escaped to the kitchen to cook. 

“Pretty good,” I smiled. “How about you? Did you finish your car?”

“No.” Jacob shook his head. “I still need parts. We borrowed that one.” He pointed with his thumb in the direction of the front yard. 

“Sorry. I haven’t seen any… what was it you were looking for?” I asked, and placed a grilled cheese sandwich in the pan.

“Master cylinder. Also, is there something wrong with the truck?”

“No, why?” 

“Oh, I just wondered because you weren’t driving it.” 

I stared down at the pan, pulling up the edge of the sandwich to check the bottom side. “I got a ride with a friend.”

“Nice ride.” Jacob’s voice was admiring. “I didn’t recognize the driver, though. I thought I knew most of the kids around here.” I nodded noncommittally, keeping my eyes down as I flipped sandwiches. 

“My dad seemed to know her from somewhere. Who was it?”

I sighed in defeat. “Elizabeth Cullen.”

To my surprise, he laughed. I glanced up at him, but he was looking away, up towards the ceiling. He looked almost embarrassed. 

“Guess that explains it, then. Superstitious old man,” Jacob muttered under the breath. 

“ _Shh_. The walls aren’t that soundproof. What if your dad hears you?” I said, waving my spatula at him.

“Nah, he’s just happy to see Charlie. They haven’t spoken much since -- since their argument about us going to the hospital.” Jacob leaned against the countertop. “Say, will you make me a sandwich? It smells really good.”

I smiled and rolled my eyes as I pulled out two more slices of bread. Jacob and I chatted for a bit longer in the kitchen, but eventually the game started, and the three of them gathered in front of the television. Quietly, I set up my homework in the corner, too nervous to leave Billy alone with Charlie. 

It was a long night. Billy lingered in the hallway to talk to Charlie after the game ended, and Jacob had to push his father out towards the door. 

“Are you and your friends coming back to the beach soon?” Jacob asked as he tied the laces of his sneakers. 

“I’m not sure. I’ll see,” I hedged. 

“Come up for the next game,” Charlie encouraged. 

“Sure, sure,” Billy said. “We’ll be here. Have a good night.” His eyes shifted to mine, and the smile waned. “You take care, Bella,” he added seriously.

“Thanks,” I nodded. 

I headed for the stairs while Charlie waved from the doorway. 

“Wait, Bella,” he said. I froze. Had Billy gotten something in before I’d joined them in the living room? But Charlie was relaxed, still grinning from the unexpected visit. 

“I didn’t get a chance to talk to you tonight. How was your day?”

“Good.” I hesitated with one foot on the first stair, searching for safe details. “We won our badminton games.” 

“Wow, I didn’t know you could play badminton. 

“Well, actually, I can’t. But Mike is really good at it,” I admitted. 

“Oh-- he’s a nice kid,” Charlie mused for a minute. “Why didn’t you ask him to the dance this weekend?”

“Dad!” I groaned. “He’s dating Jessica. Besides, you know I hate dances.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess it’s good you’ll be gone Saturday. I’ve made plans to go fishing with the guys from the station. It’s going to be great weather. But if you wanted to put your trip off, I’d stay home. I feel bad leaving you home alone all the time.”

“Dad, you’re doing a great job.” I smiled, and loosened my grip around the bannister when I realized that Billy hadn’t said anything to him.

I slept better that night. The exhaustion had finally won, and it was a dreamless evening. When I woke to the pearl gray morning, my mood was serene. The tense evening with Billy and Jacob seemed harmless after a good night’s rest; I decided to forget it completely. I caught myself whistling while I pulled my hair into a ponytail, and later again as I hopped down the stairs. Charlie noticed. 

“You’re cheerful this morning,” he commented over breakfast. 

I shrugged. “It’s Friday.”

I moved through my routine briskly, and even though I rushed to the door as soon as I was sure Charlie would be out of sight, Elizabeth was faster. She was waiting in her car, windows down, engine off. I climbed into the passenger side quickly, and she grinned her perfect smile at me. It was unfair, really, how lovely she looked this early in the morning. 

At lunch she asked me about the people I’d dated. I was relieved that I’d never really dated anyone, so that particular conversation couldn’t last long. She seemed surprised by my lack of romantic history. 

“So you never wanted anyone you met?” she asked, looking contemplative. 

I took a bite of my bagel. “Not enough to make the effort,” I replied after I’d finished chewing. Her lips pulled together to the side. 

“I should have let you drive yourself today,” she sighed, apropos of nothing, as I finished my bagel. 

“Why?” I asked, blinking away the disappointment. 

“I’m leaving with Alice after lunch.”

“Oh, that’s okay. It’s not that far of a walk.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes at me, a gesture I normally would have found condescending but found strangely affectionate on her. “I’m not going to make you walk home. We’ll go get your truck and leave it here for you.”

“You _really_ don’t have to,” I protested. 

She shook her head, and held out her hand for my keys, wiggling her fingers impatiently while I rummaged through my backpack. 

“So, where are you going?” I asked as I dropped my keys into her palm. 

“Hunting,” she answered with a wrinkle of her nose. “If I’m going to be alone with you tomorrow, I’m going to take whatever precautions I can.” Her face grew morose. “I guess now’s your chance to cancel.”

“No,” I shook my head. “I’ll take my chances, thank you,” I added, smiling now in an attempt to cheer her up. “What time will I see you tomorrow?”

“That depends… it’s a Saturday, don’t you want to sleep in?” she offered. 

“No,” I answered too fast. She restrained a smile. 

“The same time as usual, then,” she decided. “Will Charlie be there?”

“No, he’s fishing tomorrow.” I beamed at the memory of how conveniently things had worked out. “What are you hunting tonight?” I asked, hoping it wouldn’t be a touchy question. 

“Whatever we find in the park. We aren’t going far.” She seemed amused by my casual reference to her secret realities. 

“Why are you going with Alice?” 

“Alice is the most… supportive.” She glanced behind me as she spoke. 

“And the others?” I asked timidly. 

“Incredulous, for the most part,” Elizabeth replied, frowning at someone behind me. I swiveled to look at his family. Emmett whipped his head around as I made eye contact with him, and Elizabeth laughed. They were exactly the same as the first time I’d seen them. Only now they were four; their beautiful, bronze-haired sister sat across from me, looking unperturbed by their staring. 

“They don’t like me,” I guessed. 

“They just don’t understand why I can’t leave you alone,” she mused. 

“You haven’t done this with other people?” I asked, half-teasing. 

“No,” Elizabeth shook her head. There was a sincerity in her eyes that warmed my heart. I looked away in embarrassment, my eyes wandering back to his family. 

“I haven’t felt particularly inclined to spend time with other people like this in a while,” she continued. I felt her eyes on me, but I couldn’t look at her yet, even though my ears were probably already red. She was still speaking when Rosalie turned to look at me. No, not to look -- to glare, with dark, cold eyes. I wanted to look away, but her gaze held me until Elizabeth broke off mid-sentence and swore under her breath. 

Rosalie turned her head, and I was relieved to be free. I looked back at Elizabeth, and I knew she could see the confusion on my face. 

She looked apprehensive as she explained. “I’m sorry about that. She’s just worried about me. It’s probably best that she’s cautious.” 

“Do you have to leave now?” I tried to speak in a normal voice, to break the tension. 

“Oh, yes. At least I don’t have to finish the last fifteen minutes of that _wretched_ documentary,” Elizabeth said as she rose to her feet. 

I started. Alice -- her short, inky hair in a halo of spiky disarray around her exquisite, elfin face -- was suddenly staring behind her shoulder. She was a head shorter than Elizabeth, but her willowy frame was graceful even in absolute stillness. 

She greeted her without looking away from me. “Alice.”

“Elizabeth,” she answered. Her voice was high and airy, and surprisingly girlish. 

“Alice, Bella -- Bella, Alice,” she introduced us, gesturing casually with her hand, a wry smile on her face. 

“Hello, Bella.” Her smile was friendly, but her eyes were unreadable. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Hi, Alice,” I murmured. 

“Are you ready?” she asked Elizabeth. 

“Nearly. I’ll meet you in the car.” 

Alice nodded, and left without another word. Her walk was so fluid, so sinuous that I felt a sharp pang of jealousy.

“Should I say ‘have fun’, or is that the wrong sentiment?” I asked, turning back to Elizabeth. 

“No, ‘have fun’ works as well as anything,” Elizabeth grinned. 

“Well then, have fun,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I’ll be there in the morning,” she promised. She reached across the table to touch my face, her thumb brushing, feather-like, along my cheek. Then she turned and walked away, fading from sight far faster than a human was capable of. 

I intuitively knew -- and sensed she did, too -- that tomorrow would be pivotal. Our relationship couldn’t continue to balance, as it did, on the point of a knife. We would fall off one edge or the other, depending entirely upon her decision, or her instincts. I only hoped that her decision would be the same as mine, because the thought of turning away from her seemed like an impossibility. I went to the remainder of my classes, buried in thought. 

“Are you still going to Seattle?” Mike asked me in Gym. 

“Yeah, why?” I replied, thinking there was no point in explaining to Mike that I probably wasn’t _actually_ going to Seattle.

“Oh, I was just hoping you might come to the dance. We’d all dance with you. Jess’s been moping that you aren’t coming.”

“Sorry, Mike,” I said, feeling another crashing wave of guilt. I couldn’t keep neglecting them like this. “I’ll make it up to you guys soon.”

“Fine,” Mike sulked, and changed the topic. 

When the school day had finally ended, I walked to the parking lot without enthusiasm. I wasn’t particularly expecting Elizabeth to have retrieved my truck, but it was sitting in the same place she’d parked her car in this morning. I shook my head, incredulous, as I opened the unlocked door and saw the key in the ignition. There was a piece of white paper folded on my seat. I got in and closed the door before I unfolded it. Two words were written in her elegant, slanting script. 

_Be safe_. 

I laughed, and tucked the note into my pocket. 

The guilt from my conversation with Mike prompted me to call Jessica to wish her luck at the dance. She wished me luck for my trip to Seattle, and we chatted briefly about her hair and makeup plans. When I finally hung up the phone, I wasn’t sure if I was doing any better in my duties as a friend. 

A tiny voice in the back of my mind worried about what Elizabeth might decide tomorrow. It grew louder as the sun dipped beneath the horizon, and by bedtime it was intolerable. I was far too stressed to sleep, so I popped two melatonin pills and laid down in my bed, twitching from anxiety until the pills took effect. I woke early, having slept soundly, but the voice quickly reappeared. I dressed in a rush, slipping into jeans and a cream colored sweater. I sneaked a swift look out the window to see that Charlie was already gone. A thin layer of clouds veiled the sky like lace. They didn’t look very lasting, and my heart leaped at the possibility of the sun. I ate breakfast mechanically, and had just finished brushing my teeth when a quiet knock sent my heart thudding against my rib cage. 

All the agitation dissolved as soon as I opened the door and saw her face. My fears seemed very foolish in the presence of her smiling expression. 

“Good morning,” she chuckled. 

“What’s so funny?”

“We match,” she said in a sing-song voice, and held out the sleeves of her sweater. I realized she too was wearing a long, white sweater, and light-wash jeans. I laughed with her, hiding a secret twinge of regret. Wearing the same outfit as someone who looked like a runway model seemed like it could only end poorly for me. 

I locked the door behind me while she walked to the truck. She waited by the passenger door with a martyred expression that was easy to understand. 

“We made a deal,” I reminded her smugly, climbing into the driver’s seat, and reaching over to unlock her door. 

“Where to?” I asked. 

“Put your seatbelt on -- I’m nervous already.”

I rolled my eyes as I complied. 

“Where to?” I repeated with a sigh. 

“Take the one-oh-one north,” she ordered. 

“You’re not going to give me GPS directions?”

“It doesn’t really have an easy to enter address. Don’t worry, I know this route.”

It was surprisingly difficult to concentrate on the road while feeling her gaze on my face. I compensated by driving more carefully than usual through the still-sleeping town. 

“Were you planning to make it out of Forks before nightfall?”

“This truck is old enough to be your car’s grandfather -- have some respect,” I retorted. 

We were soon out of the town limits, despite his negativity. Thick underbrush and green-swathed trunks replaced the lawns and houses. 

“Turn right on the one-ten,” she instructed just as I was about to ask. I obeyed silently. 

“Now we drive until the pavement ends.”

I could hear a smile in her voice, but I was too afraid of driving off the road and proving her right to look over and be sure. 

“And what’s there, at the pavement’s end?” I finally asked, when I couldn’t see any landmarks.

“A trail.”

“We’re hiking?” Thank goodness I’d worn sneakers. 

“Is that a problem? It’s only five miles or so, and we’re in no hurry.”

“No, I’m just surprised. Why’d you pick it?”

“It’s a place I like to go when the weather is nice.” We both glanced out the windows at the thinning clouds after she spoke. 

“Guess that’s why Charlie’s going fishing.”

“And did you tell Charlie what you were up to?” she asked. 

“Sure, he knows I’ll be out. Don’t worry so much,” I chided. _Hypocrite_. As if I weren’t the one who spent all of last night worrying. The road ended then, constricting to a thin foot trail with a small wooden marker. I parked on the narrow shoulder and stepped out. It was warm now, warmer than it had been in Forks since the day I’d arrived, almost muggy under the clouds. I pulled off my sweater and knotted it around my waist, glad that I had an undershirt on -- especially if I had five miles of hiking ahead of me. Elizabeth was next to me, facing into the unbroken forest beside my truck. 

“This way,” she said, starting into the dark forest. 

“The trail?” I scurried after her, confused. 

“I said there was a trail at the end of the road, not that we were taking it.”

“Oh.” 

“Do you want to go back?” she asked quietly. I sensed a hint of nervousness, that she wanted my approval for this hike, and shook my head quickly as I caught up to her. It wasn’t a hard path - the way was mostly flat, and she held the dangling branches aside for me. For the most part, we walked in silence. Occasionally, we chatted about mundane topics. Things like our grade school teachers, favorite birthdays, and childhood pets. I was forced to admit that I’d given up on pets after killing three fish in a row, which I didn’t learn until later was because the tank I insisted on keeping them in was far too small. She laughed at that, louder than I was used to, and it echoed bell-like through the empty woods. 

The hike took us most of the morning. The forest spread out around us in a boundless labyrinth of ancient trees, but Elizabeth was perfectly at ease in the green maze, never seeming to feel any doubt about our direction. After several hours, the light that filtered through the canopy transformed, the murky olive tone shifting to a brighter jade. _The sun_. I felt another thrill of excitement, which quickly turned to impatience. 

“Are we there yet?” I teased, pretending to scowl. 

“Nearly.” She smiled at the change in my mood. “Do you see the brightness ahead?”

I squinted. “Um, should I?”

“Maybe it’s a bit soon for your eyes,” Elizabeth smirked. 

“Time to visit the optometrist,” I muttered. Her smirk grew more pronounced. 

But then, after another hundred yards, I could definitely see a lightening in the trees ahead, a pale yellow glow that seemed to beckon for me. I picked up the pace, my eagerness growing with every step. I reached the edge of the pool of light and stepped through the last fringe of ferns into the loveliest place I had ever seen. The meadow was small, round, and dotted with wildflowers in an array of colors. The sun was directly overhead, filling the circle with a haze of buttery sunshine. I reached my hands up above my head, stretching my fingers towards the warmth. After a moment, I halfway turned, wanting to share this with her, but she wasn’t behind me where I thought she’d be. I spun around, searching for her with sudden alarm. Finally, I spotted her, still under the dense shade of the canopy at the edge of the hollow, watching me with wistful eyes. Only then did I remember what the beauty of the meadow had driven from my mind -- the enigma of Elizabeth and the sun. 

I took a step back toward her, my eyes alight with curiosity. Her eyes were wary, reluctant. I smiled encouragingly and beckoned with my hand, taking another step back towards her. She held up a hand in warning, and I hesitated, rocking back onto my heels. 

Elizabeth was perfectly still for a moment, as if she were contemplating something, and then she stepped out into the bright glow of the midday sun.


End file.
